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Published: September 22nd 2008
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Breakfast on the road
Literally on ther road, as you can see the driver sitting there, eating. Gives new meaning to the term "roadside diner". Every backpacker has a ''bus from hell'' story and this one's mine. In relative terms, it probably only ranks around the first or second level, not one of the deeper levels of hell.
Anna and I shared a room with Toby last night and we wake at 05h00 to get a bus across Flores. It comes around 06h00. No air-conditioning but at least the windows open so cool morning air comes in. However, when you travel by bus in Indonesia you get to bring everything with you that is necessary for your trip and in this case someone is transporting ten 20-kilo bags of bananas. They're stacked in the centre aisle and on the floor in front of the rear seats. The back seat is best for legroom, so I choose it and stretch my legs out on the big, white sacks. This lasts a few minutes as the bus fills up. Finally we have 30 passengers and a driver and helper on a bus made for 22. Plus all the damn bananas and other assorted boxes. Luggage tied on the roof. There are people standing in the two open doorways, hanging onto a rail above and they'll stand there
Packing them in
This gives a bit of an idea of what it was like, but you really had to be there. for the entire ten-hour trip.
No point in complaining about the bananas. Transporting your stuff, however much you have, is just the way things are done. It's true that I paid for a place on the bus, which should include the legroom and a place for my feet. But nothing I could have said would have changed it. There were guys sitting on the banana bags in front of me, so I was squashed into my narrow seat with a fat guy on my left who chain-smoked clove scented cigarettes. On my right sat Anna and on her right sat an American guy named Aaron.
Aaron's been travelling 14 years, living on a Social Security disability pension. He's convinced 9/11 was the work of his own government so they could go after Iraqi oil. Well, conspiracy theories... I have a lot of trouble believing any government has the resources and the skills to carry out and cover up this kind of thing, keep it all secret, but Aaron's sure that's what's happened. I point out that Nixon was driven from office for a simple break and entry, which is fairly junior stuff on the serious crimes scale but
Don
Some of these guys stood there hanging on for 10 hours...the entire length of the trip. I wonder if they get a discount ticket for this? he's not having any of this.
It's also all about oil as far as he's concerned. Useless to tell him Iraqi oil was already in the hands of Western companies or that the reason I think the Second Gulf War happened was the Bush doctrine of preventive war which supplanted the commonly accepted doctrine of pre-emptive war. Condoleeza Rice held a press conference well before 9/11 to announce it. Essentially, it says the US will not tolerate any threat to its dominant position in international relations and will attack any country that appears to be threatening. The threat doesn't have to be imminent nor even evident to all, just suspected by the administration.
When you've stated such a doctrine publicly, what must you do? Prove you're serious. Go and beat someone up. 9/11 gave the Bush administration the excuse for this, but why Iraq and not Afghanistan where the planning originated? W's Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, had been wanting to screw Iraq since the 1980s when he was involved with Bush Pere's administration. So he retargeted the cross-hairs and away they went.
But Aaron's a conspiracy theorist to the bone, so I pretend to fall asleep.
I've got a bag of cookies and Anna and I eat this for breakfast, anticipating a couple of pit stops along the way. The first of these come at 08h00 on the highway in the middle of nowhere. The driver and his helper simply stop and sit on the road to eat rice from a paper package. Not beside the road. On the road. Cars drive around the bus, around them. Meal over, we continue.
The road snakes and twists through dense green jungle, banana trees everywhere, going up and down hills, then comes out onto a high plain that it broad and is being cultivated. We near Ruteng about noon and we're sure a meal stop is at hand, but no, fuel stop only and then the bus continues. Anna and I are very uncomfortable and very hungry. The bus makes occasional brief stops to let off passengers or take on new ones. At one of these there's a small store across the street and in a plastic container I see...donuts! I buy 10 and Anna and I east most of them happily.
At 13h30 the bus finally stops for a meal in a disgusting roadhouse probably run by the driver's sister-in-law's aunt or something like that. Only kickbacks could be the reason for stopping here. I eat rice and the skinniest chicken leg I've ever seen. Anna's unwell and just drinks coke. She has a headache so I give her an aspirin. We also met Ron (NL) who's on the bus with us. He's travelling from the Netherlands to New Zealand without taking a plane just because he enjoys this challenge.
At 1630 we come to Bajawa. Bus ride's over but not the trip. There's a minivan here that'll take us to Ende. Aaron and Ron want to go as they're both on a visa run to East Timor and have to catch a ferry in Ende. Anna wants to see Kelimutu near Moni and has to go to Ende for this. I wanted to do this as well but don't have enough time as I have to catch a plane from Ende tomorrow.
We hire the minivan. It's comfortable but the driver puts on this horrible music at full volume, a kind of Indonesian pop/synth with a calypso beat to it. We tell him to turn it down, but every time he does he keeps inching the volume higher with each new song until it's at unbearable levels again. Finally I tell him Anna's sick and he must turn it off. He does and relief washes through us. We drive the rest of the three-hour trip in silence. The road snakes and twists and the minivan goes very fast.
20h00 sees us come to Ende and our hotel, which is suggested by Ron. I hadn't made any plans for a hotel, was just going to show up and find something, so Ron's choice is fine. Anna and I share a room to keep costs down. She knows she's safe with me and, anyway, this is part of the system, the creed maybe, of budget travellers as opposed to vacationers. Share rides, share rooms, share meals, share ideas, share experiences. Travellers share a lot with each other. Help someone today; get help tomorrow. Help each other and help yourself.
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