When The Going By Bus Gets Tough

By pretending I knew how to speak Indonesian, I managed to fight my way through the taxi drivers and find the place where I could catch a bus to Kalideres, the bus station for southbond buses from Jakarta. From there I had decided on going to Lebuan, which is on the west coast of Java. The ticket normally cost 1,500-2,000 rupiah, so I generously offered 3,000 to the ticket man. He insisted on it costing 10,000 although it seemed like all the other passengers paid 1,000. After a long discussion/bargaining session, I started waving with a 5,000 note, which he took eagerly enough. I also managed to grab a 1,000 note in change without him seeing it. Few things demand more of a person than getting a fair price for a en "ekonomi bis" bus ride in Indonesia. Then again, there are fixed price air conditioned buses available as well, where you'll pay a lot more, but you can at least be sure that you don't pay ten times more than anyone else on the bus.

The bus ride itself was the first of many tiresome bus rides in Indonesia. As a foreigner, you're sure to get a lot of attention from the locals. They'll all come up to you and practice their English on you, whether you're pretending to be asleep or not. "What your name?" "Where you come from?" "Are you married?" "Why not?" "Have you many child?" And so on, until all the sentences they know in English have been spoken a few times. In the beginning I enjoyed it, and frantically looked in my dictionary to figure out appropriate answers to their questions. Eventually I figured out that the reason they asked was mainly that they wanted me to ask the same questions back, so that they could tell me all about themselves. When they had nothing more to tell, they went satisfied and smiling back to their seats.

Another funny detail about the low budget buses in Indonesia is that they never close the doors. So more or less continuously throughout the journey someone selling fruit, nuts, icebags and whatever will jump in through the front door, walk through the bus yelling "habla habla habla" and try to sell their stuff, before they jump out of the back door. And when the bus reaches its destination the driver gets out his shovel and starts pushing the trash along the floor and in the end there's an incredible heap of garbage coming out in the back. Rather as if the bus was a body on its own.

When I came to Lebuan, I knew where I wanted to stay; Sunset View, a few kilometres outside the town. A rickshaw offered to take me there for 700 rupiah. Normally I don't use rickshaws, but I thought that at 700 it couldn't be far away, so I accepted and got in. It started well, with him using the pedals to take us into a forest, downhill most of the way. But then! Suddenly he stopped and said "This here". It took me a while to figure out that this spot, in the middle of the forest, apparently was a sunset view of some kind. I protested wildly and took out a map showing him where I wanted to go. It turned out that to go to THAT Sunset View, I would have to pay him 5,000 rupees. I declined and started walking in the direction I thought was right. The rickshaw guy followed me for quite a while and eventually the fare was reduced to 1,000, and he said "taksi cost 25,000". By then I was so annoyed by this guy that I stopped the first taxi that passed by and just waved at him and smiled. The taxi cost me 500... Now, a year or so later I can't help feeling sorry for the guy with the rickshaw. He spent more than an hour on annoying me and all he got out of it was about 30 American cents, and he was in the middle of nowhere with no potential customers. But at the time being... I felt really good about not having been tricked into paying way too much for that rickshaw ride.

A superb room at Sunset View cost me 12.500 rupiah (at the time about US$5, in May 1998 less than US$1). I asked the people running the place where I could find someone to take me out into the ocean to see the remains of Krakatau, which is a huge volcano that exploded in the biggest volcano explosion ever (well, it was huge, anyway). Although this is the only attraction in the area, they seemed to never have heard about it. So I asked for the tourist information, to which a woman looking a bit unsure pointed southwards and said "One hundred kilometers". I decided that chances were that either 1) her English was really, really bad or 2) her idea of the concept "kilometer" was a bit inaccurate, and started walking south. 15 minutes later I found a small hut with a sign saying "Tourist informati". They told me there was a cyclone going on in the area, so there just MIGHT be a boat trip to Krakatau in a couple of days, but the chances were small.

So, having spent a rather chaotic day trying to avoid being totally ripped off by Indonesians, I went to bed and slept very well while the storm raged outside.

The next morning I was, as usual, awoken by the people running the guest house, but this time because I had asked them to do it, so that I could be up in time for the boat to Krakatau. But the weather was bad. It should be better by 10, so I should just sit down and wait. But seven minutes later the wife of the man who were to take us to sea had turned sick, so he had to stay home. Yeah, right. That MIGHT have happened back in Europe, but not in Indonesia. Not ever. Anyway, there would not be a trip that day, so I just walked straight into the woods, until I happened upon a nice waterfall which saved my day. It was such a nice day for not going to Krakatau. The ocean looked really nasty when I went down to the beach a bit later.

So I slept, still tired from the busy days in Singapore. And the next morning the weather was even worse. So I gave up. Having read a lot of nice things about Bandung, I got on the first available bus eastwards. I'm not sure if it actually went eastwards, but 4 buses and 14 hours later I gained consciousness in Bandung. I had paid about twice what Lonely Planet said the trip would cost altogether, so I may have taken some major detours, but the view from the bus had been very nice, so I didn't mind too much. Besides, by now I had developed a good technique for travelling by bus in Indonesia. First, it is necessary to not sit in any of the seats, but in the luggage rack in the back of the bus, behind the luggage. From there the panorama view backwards is splendid, and you won't even have to look at the traffic in front of the bus. Also, this is where whatever little air there is in the bus can be found.

On one ride in particular, this turned out to be a very smart move. In the middle of nowhere the bus were stopped by a group of soldiers. They claimed 30 seats, and the people who had to leave the bus didn't look too happy about it. I sat behind the luggage and tried to look as if I didn't understand anything at all, and it worked. The bus drove on with me surrounded by lots of soldiers. I discovered that Indonesian soldiers, unlike soldiers elsewhere, do not whistle after girls, they do not fart, bellow or tell rude jokes to each other. Actually, they do not make any sound whatsoever. Especially not when there is a major and a colonel amongst them. It was a quiet ride, and nobody bothered me at all. Heaven.

Although Krakatau exploded a hundred years ago, the Indonesians are doing everything they can to keep the production of ashes up. They all smoke. Actually, they use only one match each per day; to light the first sigarette of the day. From then on until they go to sleep, they light their cigarette with the previous cigarette. It's quite amazing to watch. I figure I most definitely would have barfed on the bus, if the Indonesians had not mixed some kind of clove or herbs into the tobacco, which makes the smell quite different from the European cigarettes. It actually smells kinda nice, and they claim it makes smoking healthy. *shrug*

When I finally arrived in Bandung, it turned out I hadn't afterall. The new bus station has been built quite a distance outside Bandung, so that you have to take another bus to get into the city. And I arrived so late that there were no buses. I managed to hitch a ride with errr... some suspicious-looking fellows, and soon I was in Bandung for real. Sademas Homestay at 10000 rupiahs per day became my new home.

My first activity in Bandung, after sleeping, was to find the ramfighting market. Which I did, because I had a very good description of how to get there. Unfortunately they had built a brand new baseball stadium there, so the goats where somewhere else. It's a nice park there, too. But I decided to head back for downtown Bandung. Something went wrong, I picked the wrong angkot and came to Lembang instead, a smaller city a bit higher than Bandung. There's not a lot to see, just a few stupas and temples. You can also see horse taxis there. Not because tourists think it is a nice thing to try, but because that's what people use to get around up there. Having seen that, I decided to walk back to Bandung, just to make sure I didn't make another bus-mistake. This, of course, triggered the most incredible rainstorm, it almost looked like drifting snow. So I escaped into a small restaurant and had iced tea, corn and fried chicken. It was almost like being back in Tennessee. Especially since the restaurant was a Kentucky Fried Chicken one.

Later on, I decided to follow the sound of really loud rock music, and suddenly found myself in "Jeans Street", a most incredible street in Bandung more or less dedicated to factory outlets selling all kinds of trendy clothing of all Western brands, original as well as fake. When I checked out the price tags, I soon found the explanation for how the young people in this area of Indonesia can dress as smart as they do. I bought myself a pair of 501's as well as a denim shirt, and that set me back less than US$25. The most interesting parts of the street aren't the low prices, though, but the amazing, huge figures of Superman, Batman, King Kong, Rambo and others, who stand upon the roofs of the shops, next to giant loudspeakers, all trying to attract as many customers as possible.

In addition to clothing, you can also pick up pirated software in this area, but to me it seemed that the software was much more oriented towards a Chinese audience here than it was in Malaysia/Thailand, and the software was not as new and cheap either. The McDonalds in "Jeans Street" is the only one I've ever seen with outdoor karaoke and a "restaurant house band". You'll also find Wendy's, KFC, Texas Fried Chicken, Chicago Fried Chicken, California Fried Chicken, Jakarta Fried Chicken, A&W and a lot of others American inspired businesses here, which I found a bit strange, since I couldn't spot any foreigners in the street whatsoever, besides myself.

I may have been there just out-of-tourist-season, because I was the only one who wanted to go on a tour to the nearby volcanos, so the trip was cancelled. *Sigh* So I quickly decided to continue to Pangandaran.