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