These sidewalks are, most of the time, unproportional in size, with its width much narrower than the requirement. Every two or three meters, a tree sticks out of the floor, with the root cracking the sidewalk, while its trunk, at the same time, becoming a separator that forces every walking couple to let go of their locked hands if they wanted to pass through. But, if the tree was absent, you would absolutely find a streetlight or an electric pole full of advertisements - electrical appliances repair service's, toilet repair service's, and recent election's participants's pictures - as substitute.
In other cases, sidewalks are built on gutters, just acting as some sort of mask to cover the filthy water beneath it that sometimes is blacker than the coffee you last drank (unless you drank it with milk, which I'm pretty much convinced you did). The odd part is, it's not rare to find the gutter cover/sidewalk, which is simply line of blocks made from cement, laying not on the gutter, but on top of another block, or occasionally by the side of the road. Well, maybe they just cleaned the gutter, although it's still as filthy as before, then found it too much trouble to return it back to its proper place. Of course it's dangerous, but at least you'll have this jumping game to keep your lower half from turning into something you'll have a hard time recognizing.
But, my bench was on a different type of sidewalk. It was neither the tree infested sidewalks nor the gutter cover, it's of a slightly fancier type of sidewalk. It had benches. I didn't smell any sewage. In place of trees, potted plants flanked my bench. Those were fancy. Rare as it is, I'm glad such sidewalks exist.
I forgot to mention that I'm back home in Medan. And I also put milk in my coffee.
