The fable of double headed birds - two versions

In my last visit to Indonesia, I visited the great Buddhist temple Borobudu. In the hotel in JogyaKarta, one channel in the TV repeatedly broadcasts a documentary about the Borobudu temple. It was actually until after visiting the temple I found out this documentary. I left it repeated several times, and got to know quite a lot that I did not know while visiting the temple.

What was interesting to me the most in this documentary is the fables depicted according to thousands of narrative panels carved on the stone. Some are well known, like the mice gave the cat a bell to hung on his neck so that the cat was heard whenever he was close by. There was one fable was especially interesting to me: the double headed bird. Maybe it is because it was totally new to me.

The story is about a double headed bird: one head reach up, eating all the fine fruits, while the other one reach downwards, can only eat those falling bad ones. The upward one told the downward one, this is fine, anything I eat will go to the same stomach. You can just eat those falling ones. Thus the downward head kept eating those bad fruits fell on the ground. One day he ate a poison one and the double headed bird dies.

Today's Jakarta earthquake somehow reminded me of Indonesia, and also about this fable. I tried to look for a more complete story online, and it turns out that there is some interesting twist. The most common version of this story is like this paragraph found in William Shakespeare's The Tragedie of Coriolanus :
Once on a time on Mount Himavat there was a bird named Jivanjiva. It had one body and two heads, one of which used to eat fine fruits to give strength and vigor to the body. The other became jealous and thought, why should that head always eat fine fruits, of which I never taste one? Accordingly it ate a poisonous fruit and the two heads perished at the same time.

In this more common version of the story, the jealousy and revenge are the main theme. With the intention of revenge, you would more likely to destroy yourself. However, the twist in the documentary film is also inspiring. I remember the story teller gave a sudden twist after telling how the downward head happened to eat a poison fruit and the bird died:
Our society is like this double headed bird: the rich and the poor. It will totally collapse if it allows some to eat the good fruits and others only eat the bad ones.

What a metaphor for social equity statement! It is interesting... ...

Why do Indonesians drive on the left?

It sounds like a stupid question to ask if you live in Europe every day. Having lived in China, US, driving on the right side of the road is the normal thing to do for me. Until one day Mr. Aawaraa mentioned that when he first came to US, he would easily bumped into other person since he was used to walking on the left. Mrs. Aawaraa thus realized that there were quite some countries driving on the left. This became real experience when later visiting India, it was really very easy to walk on the wrong side of the road. Another visit to UK was also similar, cars running on the left side of the street is the first thing to remind you that you are in a different country. For me, another connection was also established: India is British colony, and that is why they both drive on the left.

This connection however troubled me a lot in my recent visit to Indonesia: Why do Indonesians drive on the left side of the road? I couldn't understand, because, because Dutch drives on the right! Indonesia was Dutch colony, but how come they do not follow the Dutch rule?

What makes this even more troubling is, nobody knows the answer. I kept asking everyone around, including some university professors, master students, nobody has any idea... I just can't understand, why do Indians follow their colonizer, while the Indonesians do not. That doesn't make sense to me, not at all.

Then I have to rely on my own research abilities, I have to do the research myself. A brief search connect me to this map, however, it doesn't answer my questions. It only give the history after 1858, and the Netherlands drove on the right, and Indonesia drive on the left since then.

My further findings are really interesting. In this website, it writes:
When the Dutch arrived in Indonesia in 1596, they brought along their habit of driving on the left. It wasn't until Napoleon conquered the Netherlands that the Dutch started driving on the right. Most of their colonies, however, remained on the left as did Indonesia and Suriname.

So, this is consistent with my previous connection: Indonesia did drive the same as their colonizer Dutch. What has changed is the Dutch rule. However, I couldn't find very reliable sources on the history of the change. It generally talking about it here,
The Netherlands drove on the left until Napoleon's time, but Dutch colonies (mostly) remained on the left as did Indonesia.

Reading more you will find, it is hard for a country to maintain left driving if your neighboring countries all drive on the right. The Netherlands being a small country in the middle of Germany and Belgium, even if it didn't change during Napoleon time, it would have to change later when most of the Europe drive on the right. Indonesia was able to stay on the left, is mostly because it is a country on islands. There are not much confusion of changing the side if you drive into a different country.

This may hold true also to India and UK. India has bordering countries, including Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, all drive on the left till today. The Himalayas on the north minimizes the traffic almost to zero. UK sustains because of its being an island country. However, I heard that were complains about cars across the British tunnel can not be easily used in France. There might be one day this globalized world will move towards driving on one common side of the road.

The picture was taken in Dublin, Ireland in 2008. It was to remind pedestrians to look to the right for upcoming cars, definitely a sign for those people who come from the right side driving countries.