Five Footed Sellers

The Indonesian Kaki Lima, literally Five Feet at are common feature of many Indonesian cities. They push carts that are mini-kitchens. "Five Feet" refers to the two wheels and a stand when parked on the cart and the two legs on the seller. They go through neighborhoods selling their wares. I did not hear them in Medan. As far as I could tell in Medan, they moved their carts to a particular spot and set up shop.

When going through a neighborhood, they make a special sound to let the inhabitants know that they are there and what they are selling. Each type of food as a specific sound.

Fried Rice: Rapping chopsticks on a wok.

Meatball Soup: a hollow "tuk-tuk" sound made by hitting a bowl with a spoon.

Wall 's(aka Good Humor) Ice Cream: a tinny sounding short song

Satay: the seller shout's "tay, tay" or "tay, satay"

Here are some other sounds one might hear(especially on Bali), as described by another blogger

• The ‘tek-tek’ sound. This is produced by the seller who hits a stick on a hollow bamboo tube as he pushes the cart. He sells chicken noodle soup (mie ayam). Locals call this ‘mie tektek’.
• The ‘ding-a-ling’ sound. Listen out for this in the heat of the day. This guy’s pushing a cart packed full of brightly coloured coconut ice cream cones (es). He rings a wee bell as he passes by.
• The ‘ek-oh’ sound. Squeezing a small horn as he cycles, the rujak (spicy, sweet and sour fruit salad) seller normally rides a bicycle so you have to be fast to catch him!
• The ‘tooooot’ sound. You’ll know this one when you hear it, because it doesn’t stop until it’s out of ears’ reach. Typically out-and-about in the late afternoon, this guy sells steamed rice cakes called kue putu, which are made from rice flour, coconut and palm sugar.

Since the one thing missing from this mobile kitchen is running water, people bring out their own dishes for food they will buy. They then take it inside their house and eat. Yummy.

To see another blog's entry on them go here