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)