Meeting folks at home makes up for 40-hour trip

Meeting folks at home makes up for 40-hour trip

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Bukittinggi, West Sumatra

Syahrial, 21, did not feel like returning to his hometown near
Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, this year. But he finally decided to,
as his mother had incessantly been asking him to celebrate Idul
Fitri there this year.

Wearing sandals and ticketless, he packed his bags and carried
a cardboard box with him that Saturday morning, Nov. 22, to join
a sea of homeward-bound travelers at Rawamangun bus terminal,
East Jakarta.

He approached a counter selling tickets for West Sumatran
cities such as Solok, Padang, Pariaman and Bukittinggi.
Fortunately, he was able to get a ticket that cost Rp 185,000
(US$21.76) for an economy-class seat on an ANS bus, destined for
Bukittinggi. It was scheduled to depart at 3 p.m.

Syahrial decided to stay at the terminal since he thought that
he could not go back to his place in Tangerang and return to the
terminal in time for departure.

But when the clock struck 3 p.m., there was no sign of the
bus. Thirty minutes passed with still no hint of its arrival.
There was not even an announcement about its lateness. Then it
began to rain.

Syahrial, who had skipped five consecutive Idul Fitri
celebrations in his hometown, hastily ran for shelter under the
terminal canopy. His box got wet as the torrential rain had
flooded the floor inside the terminal.

At 4:30 p.m., the bus heading for Padang and Bukittinggi
finally showed up. Syahrial, along with dozens of other
passengers heading for the same destination, hurried to the bus
in the heavy rain that soaked them and their luggage.

Not until 30 minutes later did the bus finally depart, leaving
hundreds of other travelers who, unfortunately, were waiting for
late buses too. Syahrial sat in the non-air-conditioned bus
together with around 50 passengers and drew a deep, but brief
breath of thankfulness.

Less than 10 minutes later, the roof above him leaked, with
water dripping over his black jacket. They were small drips, but
he was still annoyed. Luckily, the rain stopped several minutes
later.

As the bus drove through the city's streets, Syahrial shared
his story with The Jakarta Post.

"I don't miss my hometown, really. Besides, my mom
occasionally visits me here, like a couple of weeks ago when I
got sick," said Syahrial, whose father passed away years back.

Syahrial was born in Bukittinggi and lived there until ninth
grade.

"Then I left for Jakarta to attend an engineering senior high
school and stayed at my uncle's house," he explained, pausing
briefly at 7:30 p.m when the bus entered Merak seaport and
blended with dozens of other buses, lining up to drive onto a
ferry to cross the Sunda Straits.

The bus filled swiftly with vendors selling food such as fried
rice, dodol (taffy made of sticky rice, coconut milk and palm
sugar), fried tofu and peanuts, to break the fast. Some vendors
even sold wooden fans.

The atmosphere got steamier as some of the passengers started
smoking, adding to the pervading humidity. The travelers chatted
and shared jokes, all speaking in West Sumatran language, while
cheesy, pirated disco music interspersed the laughter and the
noise of crying babies.

The bus finally managed to board the ferry, Nusa Agung, after
an hour-and-a-half, with passengers cheering its long-awaited
entrance.

There, thousands of people were massed in the lounges and on
the deck, mingling with dozens of land vehicles. There were so
many people, some even lying on the floor, that Syahrial was
almost unable to find a decent seat for himself.

At midnight, the bus left the ferry for Lampung province at
the start of its 960-kilometer journey to West Sumatra.
Two-and-a-half hours later, the bus stopped at a roadside
restaurant so that the passengers, almost all of them Muslim,
could take sahur (the predawn meal).

During the day, some of the passengers managed to fall asleep.
However, many, including Syahrial, were forced to remain awake as
the rough and rocky road caused the bus to bump along almost all
the way, making it difficult to sleep. Damaged asphalt made the
trip even bumpier for the stressed-out travelers.

Entering Palembang, the provincial capital of South Sumatra,
the bus picked up three more passengers. They paid Rp 80,000 each
and sat on spare plastic chairs.

It was hard to find restaurants for the bus to stop at.
Sometimes, it had to pull over along the edge of rice fields
because the passengers had to indulge their calls of nature in
the bushes and tall grass.

As night crept on, the stifling bus stopped abruptly when its
main headlamps stopped functioning. This caused the bus to drive
more slowly, as there were many unpredictable sharp turns along
the way.

"This is ridiculous. The crew should have brought spare bulbs
with them. The journey's gonna take longer," Syahrial grumbled as
he shifted in his seat.

As if the journey had not been enough of an ordeal, the
passengers heading to Bukittinggi were forced to change buses. At
3:30 a.m., Syahrial dragged his luggage into another bus, but
there was no seat available. He had to stand, even though
Bukittinggi was still hours away.

Later that morning, he found himself in Lubuk Basung instead
of Pariaman as he had expected. The bus driver took pity on him
and drove him another two hours to Pariaman, where he caught a
minivan to Koto Mambang. Then, he got on an ojek (motorcycle
taxi) for a 20-kilometer climb.

After the ojek ride, Syahrial met his aunt and some of his
neighbors and former schoolmates, who were more than happy to see
him.

"It's wonderful to see them again here. Some of my former
friends were much smaller than I when I left. But now they're so
much taller," said Syahrial, who is now in college majoring in
electrical engineering.

Syahrial finally reached his isolated house after an up-and-
down walk over rocky limestone and a muddy track for another 30
minutes. He eventually arrived at his home, Talago village,
Padalangan subdistrict, which lies at the foot of Mount
Singgalang.

After almost 40 hours of travel, Syahrial was so glad that
many of his close neighbors, mostly old people, could still
remember him after five full years.

"I'm so relieved to have returned, finally. I never thought
I'd really be glad to meet these people again," he said, adding
that he had decided to stay for around two weeks.