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.