Thief on Argo Lawu

On Sunday Oct. 19 my wife and I traveled to our home town Yogyakarta from Jakarta on the Argo Lawu executive train.

During my previous overland journeys (by train, night bus, or private car) I had always had difficulty in catching some sleep.

That day was an exception. After dinner and reading for one hour I became sleepy and fell into a deep slumber. It was such a deep sleep that I woke up only 10 minutes before the train arrived at Tugu station in Yogyakarta and that was by courtesy of a train attendant. In normal circumstances I would have woken up when the train stopped at Cirebon and Purwokerto.

I woke up my wife and started getting ready to leave the train. When I went to reach for my traveling bag on the rack above my seat (number 2 on the left from the back door), I did not see it. It had moved to a corner. Logically it is not possible for the bag to shift by itself because the railway track is not very steep anywhere. It was eerie. A closer look revealed that an envelope with more than one million rupiah had disappeared. Personal articles worth another million were also gone. Apparently the lock had not been tampered with, but there was a small hole at the end of the zipper.

I asked the lady sitting behind me how come my bag was above her seat. She said she had not slept during the journey, just sometimes glanced through the window. She added, however, that there was a man with (dyed) blond hair who passed three times. She saw a bag around midnight placed on the seat next to her.

I went to the dining car to speak to the security staff. I did not get a satisfactory response. The train arrived and there was no follow-up to my talk with the security man.

I appeal to prospective passengers of Argo Lawu to be watchful for any possibility of theft, not to use traveling bags with zippers because they are easy to open and not to be deceived by the neat appearance of passengers sitting close by.

I would ask the state railway company (Perumka) to improve security on its trains. The food also needs improving. Perumka should realize that the quality of its service deteriorates from year to year, which is in sharp contrast to the increase in their revenues gained from their suffering passengers.

DODHY ACHDIYAT

Yogyakarta