Bad Bus Rides Love Me

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So, continuing from my last entry the bus ride was indeed a classic Asian bus ride. Terrible, awful, woeful, are adjectives quick to come to mind. After boarding the bus at 7:00pm we settled into our seat near the back expecting to arrive in Yogyakarta by 3 or 4am. Now I have traveled quite a few countries in Asia now, so I don't expect buses to leave on time, nor even a little late, but this was bad even by Asian standards.

The Jakarta bus terminal is massive holding hundreds of buses. Now whoever designed this terminal deserves a death similar to Saddam (not encouraging the death penalty, nor approving of how Iraq handled the hanging) but hundreds of buses are trying to leave the one exit, and we were unfortunate enough to be leaving during rush hour (hour is loosely applied, as a city like Jakarta, over 8 million, is more like rush evening). So our bus jerked forward and backwards trying to maneuver into a good position to exit for an eternity. Now what would you think is a reasonable amount of time to wait on a bus in the same terminal while it tries to exit? 1 hour, 2 hours? Well, we finally got out of the terminal at 11pm a mere 4 hours after we boarded the bus, success, right? Hell no, we're just on the street where we can see the traffic jam, and continue our wait. Now for a bus ride that was only supposed to be 8 hours, things weren't looking good that we were gonna make our destination at our planned time.

Unfortunately, if you're reading this, simply reading 4 hours doesn't exactly make you understand. This doesn't explain how bad this wait was. While being stuck in a bus terminal is bad enough, the doors of the bus are left open allowing an infinite number of touts (vendors) to board the bus and sell you stuff a dollar store would be ashamed to stock. Now let's go through a quick list: nope, don't need a flashlight, nor a flashing keychain. Same goes for an atlas, sewing kit, stapler, pencil kit, and pen radio that releases perfume. This is only a small inventory and doesn't include the people selling drinks, snacks, bags of apples, newspapers and Indonesian magazines. Did laugh at one guy who tried to sell me a ruler, but had extra inventory. After I smiled and declined he opened his jacket and had DVD's of Indonesian porn which he offered. Again I pleasantly declined (good thing too as the guesthouse we stayed at had rules indicating NO VISITORS (prostitutes...lol), NO DRUGS, NO PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL).

We finally got on the road and were heading at a good pace and we got some sleep. We woke up somewhere in Java and figured we would be in Yogyakarta soon. Wrong thing to think. Going up this hill on the highway the bus engine dies and we start rolling backwards against traffic on this highway. The driver navigates it to the side of the road, where everybody gets out and sits under some trees beside the road. Guess this is a common and expected thing. The Indonesian men and I (we were the only foreigners on the bus) were ordered to push the bus from the back á la Little Miss Sunshine. Unfortunately this was unsuccessful and it looked like we were going to be there for awhile. After talking to the locals they flagged a bus headed to Yogyakarta so we transferred buses on the highway and had another journey ahead.

All in all, our 8 hour bus ride was 20 hours. We arrived at 3 alright, 3pm!!! 12 hours later on Christmas Eve. Great way to spend it, definitely a new Christmas Eve experience. We loved that we took the bus the night before to get more time in Yogya instead of the morning train, which arrived at noneother than 3pm.

Twas all worth it though to see beautiful and amazing temples...

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Photos

Waiting...
Buses all fighting for an exit position to get out of Hell, also known as the Jakarta Bus Terminal

Still Waiting...
Yup, haven't moved much. Another annoying aspect was 75% of the buses around us were EMPTY!!! Not a person on any of them.

I Could Care Less
Stalls on the side of the road. Taken from the window of the bus.

Hmm...what's wrong?
Right after we exited the bus...not sure what's going on yet.

Ahh...engine trouble?
Well, something's wrong, hopefully somebody can figure this out.

What do we do?
I took this just before the driver asked us to push the bus from the back.

Great Spot!
Yup, right on the highway, great spot to break down, lol, no, actually there was a good view to the right of this of the mountains and villages (had to delete them :( )

Separated
On our second bus, was sitting two rows behind Miranda because it was so packed. Let's just say she wasn't happy with me (going by bus was my idea!)

We Came For This?
The beautiful ruined temple!