Sights of Ramadhan

I know I posted a few shots of the HUGE displays of fruit flavored syrups and cookies last year during Ramadhan, but I just had to post some again this year. The displays are like mushrooms in the lawn during a wet summer- they just pop up everywhere.

And the displays go up in the malls...

The speed of the workday slows tremendously during the fasting month of Ramadhan. Some workmen taking a break.

But things really seem to pick up at the neighboring police station. This is especially true in the days leading up to the end of Ramadhan and the celebration of Idul Fitri. In this shot there are about 30 full-sized buses in the parking lot in the back of the photo. I don't know if people came in on the buses or left on the buses, but this event snarled traffic quite a bit for several hours. They closed off the lot to entering traffic so folks parked all along both sides of the street around the site- where we live. What a mess. The second shot is an example of the various officers all lined up one morning.

Idul Fitri this year was July 6 and July 7, the end of Ramadhan. There are signs all over! In terms of traffic, 28-30 million Indonesians travel before and after Idul Fitri. In fact there were few people left in town, B got home from work in about 3 minutes on July 8. The motorcycle and scooter brigades left in town feel obligated to speed because they can!  On a relative scale the place seemed deserted.