Riding city buses in awful

Riding city buses in awful

JAKARTA (JP): Have you ever tried to travel in the evening on one of Jakarta's unaccountable public vehicles? They're simply murder on wheels. Looking as if they could fall apart any moment, they tear through the streets without any qualm for the bumps and potholes they meet as they go. They care least for the people clutching onto anything they can get hold of in the backseat.

The situation worsens when you must share the bus with a bunch of noisy school brats who delight in jamming bus doors, making it extremely difficult to disembark from the vehicle. You try to address them politely with "permisi" (excuse me), but on the city's minibuses such an appeal is, of course, ignored. Meanwhile, the bus driver impatiently inches forward, ready to step on the accelerator at any time.

You repeatedly shout, "Tunggu, Tunggu!" (wait) while the conductor, sometimes taking pity on you, yells "An old lady is getting off, wait goddamn it." Then he roughly propels you through the barrage of door jammers, still shouting, "Make way. Step away from the door. Make way for an old lady." He then pushes you off the vehicle with a "Here you go."

The conductor's words still ring in my ears. "Make way for an old lady." The expression makes me reel.

Must bus drivers resort to insulting middle aged persons to make a bus stop? Or is it just bus crew jargon?

I have long since discovered that conductors use the expression for any passenger, young or old, who hesitantly gets off a slow moving bus.

I recently took a bus home from the Blok M bus terminal, which is usually a very short trip. We had just entered the main road when we hit one of the capital's famous traffic jams. Cars stood five lines deep, stuck. In neighboring cars and cabs, passengers were craning their necks trying to see the cause of obstruction. A European man practically stood on the hood of his car. And I thought, "Bet he wouldn't do that in his country." Which just goes to show that habits rub-off on anyone staying here long enough.

Cars started to blast their horns. Our bus driver, fed up with the situation, ambled off in an unknown direction. Not long afterwards we saw him hurrying back to the bus.

"What's wrong?" people asked.

"School kids further up the road are throwing stones at their opponents who are sitting in a bus. I wish I could turn around, but I don't see how I can do it," he replied

Prospects weren't good. Some passengers left the vehicle, obviously preferring to take another route. I had no option but to pass those rebellious students.

After what seemed an eternity, we started to inch forward. Fifty yards ahead was an open space littered with stones. A few teenage boys stood in the space shouting obscenities at no one in particular.

"Kids of the other party have long disappeared in the bus before us," our driver volunteered. "We are lucky that we have no school kids in our bus just now. Or we would have to go through in a hail of stones," he added.

On another evening I came home from Pasar Rebo, on the outskirts of East Jakarta. As usual, I took a minibus. The trip along the new toll road went smoothly and I was looking forward to getting home early. Alas, it was not to be. Near Ragunan, the driver pulled over and announced that he was not going to Blok M after all. He had something to do in Cililitan, he explained.

Left in a strange neighborhood, I had no inkling of what bus to take to the terminal in Blok M. I flagged down an orange bus and stepped on.

"Where are you headed?" the driver asked while pulling away from the curb.

"I have to go to Blok M."

"Well," he replied, "we'll get there eventually. We pass Jl. Pasar Minggu."

"That's all right," I said, not feeling like looking for other transportation at this point.

The trip to Blok M lasted well over three hours. I arrived home about 9 p.m., hot and exhausted.

Does anyone know how to keep a sunny disposition in such conditions?

-- La Chica