Bogor's Air Quality: Where Your Morning Coffee Tastes Like Traffic Jam Sadness
woke up in bogor today and immediately licked the air - big mistake. tastes like someone marinated a durian in diesel fuel. my coffee snob soul wept into the chemex. you know that crisp mountain air vibe they sell you? yeah nah, turns out being nicknamed "the rain city" just means the smog gets periodically hosed down onto your moldy sneakers.
current weather report: it's that special sweaty armpit of a day where the clouds can't decide whether to drown you or just menace you with humidity. perfect for watching the botanical gardens trees do their best impression of asthma patients. got offered a $300/month studio near alun-alun square - place smelled like fried tofu and existential dread, but i'd pay double just to escape the main road particulates.
"bro don't jog before 10am unless you wanna cough up a motorbike muffler" - overheard from some dude chain-smoking clove cigarettes outside minimart
stats from my extremely professional "wave hand out window" research: 60% of commuters ride motorbikes (helmets optional, black lung guaranteed), rent averages cheaper than artisanal pour-over beans in brooklyn, and jakarta's apocalyptic haze drifts over here faster than government denial.
"we used to collect butterflies as kids, now we collect inhalers" - actual thing a warung owner told me while serving teh pahit bitter enough to strip paint
pro-tip: the street food near warung makan di deddy will destroy your guts faster than the carbon monoxide. pack charcoal pills AND N95s. local secret? the afternoon monsoon isn't just weather - it's god trying to pressure-wash this place back to the stone age. worse towns nearby? jakarta's choking to death an hour northwest, bandung's pretending it's europe while burning trash in back alleys. escape routes exist but reddit threads warn you'll miss the chaos.
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