Jakarta starts seeing exodus as Idul Fitri holiday nears

Jakarta starts seeing exodus as Idul Fitri holiday nears

JAKARTA (JP): Despite the monetary crisis, thousands of people
carrying overloaded bags flocked to the city's major bus
terminals and train stations on Sunday for the ritual Idul Fitri
exodus.

The large crowds lining up for tickets to their hometowns in
Java, Sumatra, Nusa Tenggara and Bali forced many of the
holidaymakers to spend the night in the terminals and stations in
an attempt to claim an elusive space on a bus or train.

The sea of people on Sunday marked the beginning of the annual
exodus ahead of the Idul Fitri holiday. This mass departure
usually sees more than one third of Jakarta's 10 million
residents leave the capital to celebrate the Muslim holiday with
relatives in their hometowns and villages.

Idul Fitri, which marks the end of the Ramadhan fasting month,
is estimated to fall on Jan. 19 this year.

Some of the sites already packed with seasonal travelers were
Gambir train station in Central Jakarta, the Pulogadung and
Kampung Rambutan bus terminals in East Jakarta, and the Kalideres
bus terminal in West Jakarta.

Besides the passengers who were leaving the city on Sunday,
Gambir station attracted a crowd of at least 2,000, who began
lining up at dawn to buy tickets for Jan. 17 trips to a number of
cities in Java.

Tickets for Jan. 10 to Jan. 16 departures have reportedly
soldout.

Travelers faced a difficult struggle in their efforts to
obtain tickets, spending up to 15 hours waiting in line.

"We feel like beggars," complained many of the travelers.

By 3:30 p.m. at the Pulogadung bus terminal, the operator had
already recorded 13,268 passengers, most of whom left for Solo,
Madura and Madiun in Java; Medan, Padang, Jambi, Bengkulu and
Palembang in Sumatra; Mataram in West Nusa Tenggara; and Denpasar
in Bali.

According to Agus, a member of the terminal's special security
team, most of the bus tickets were soldout by 11:30 a.m.

According to bus passengers the long lines at the terminal
began forming at 4:30 a.m.

Some of the people could not acquire tickets to their
hometowns because they had already soldout, leaving them with
the option of paying a higher price for more deluxe means of
travel.

Ella of Kampung Melayu, for example, had to cancel her
family's trip to her husband's hometown in Medan because all of
the economy bus tickets for Jan. 14 to Jan. 18 departures were
soldout.

"My husband and I have been trying to buy tickets since the
first week of Ramadhan, but we are still unable to get them," she
said.

Ella's family changed their Idul Fitri destiny to her hometown
of Jambi.

Another passenger, Madi of Kramat Jati, said he arrived at the
terminal at 5:30 a.m. and by the evening he was still waiting to
buy bus tickets for a Jan. 18 trip to Bengkulu.

"Hopefully, I can get them. I don't even mind paying Rp
170,000 for the super-executive class," he said.

The same opinions and stories were heard at the city's two
other major bus terminals: Kalideres and Kampung Rambutan.

At the Kalideres terminal, a crowd of some 5,000 people were
waiting in line to buy tickets.

Even though thousands of Jakartans have already left the city
and thousands more are expected to leave in the days leading up
to the Idul Fitri holiday, bus terminal officials say that there
has been a drastic decline in the number of passengers compared
to last year.

"Last year we had 21,000 passengers leaving this terminal 10
days before Idul Fitri. But this season the figure has dropped
drastically to 13,263 people," Agus Salim, an employee at the
Pulogadung terminal, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

"I guess the monetary crisis has hit the people really hard,"
he added.

Mutammin A.Z., an employee at the Kalideres terminal, said
that they had seen a 20 percent drop in passengers from last year
to this year.

"This is not an exodus," Mutammin said. (ylt)