the "beauty" of public transportation

this was my old blog entry from friendster on 20 November 2006 ...

ok, before i even started, just notice the apostrophe on the title … you’ll get what i mean eventually …

so i just recently so-called join back of using the public transportation, because i can no longer stand the traffic, i got so fed up with everything, it ruins my mood in the morning — not only with the rapid increasing of vehicles, motorcycles, ‘pedagang asongan’ (people who selling their products car to car) plus the never-ending road constructions everywhere — flyovers, underpass, busway line, monorail, MRT — you named it, we’re gonna have it all soon enough but yeah it’s all being built at the same time. So anyway i decided to take the advantage of using the public transportation — here i don’t mean taxi, but more into down-to earth kind of transportation.

Ok i actually love taking public transportation … when i was studying in Australia, public transportation was my best solution of going anywhere … i loved riding the bus, because it’s cheaper, and you don’t have to worry about traffic, got lost because of making the wrong turn and difficulty in finding parking space. and it’s soo convinience .. it came every 1/2 hour or 1 hour the most .. the bus stop is normally in walking distance, so i love taking it. as well as i was travelling in other country, singapore for example … we are treated like king with the MRT, bus that comes every 15 mins or 1/2 hour.

Alrighty, back to the original topic … local public transportation is totally different from other country … yes, it’s cheaper and i don’t have to concentrate on the road much, i can just sit back and relax while listening to my ear pumping with my fave music. and most of all, i don’t have to worry about the traffic at all … i couldn’t agree more to it … but for those who don’t know, Jakarta’s .. well Indonesian public transportation is really one of the kind, something that you probably would never find any other places in the world, to name a few:

1. there is NO such thing as BUS STOP

2. we don’t pay to the driver nor swipe card to pay for the bus fare .. instead there is one person go around the bus asking for the money. if you’re lucky, you’ll get your change .. if not you just have to except the fact. so it’s better you prepare exact fare.

3. you can basically STOP the bus anywhere .. i mean anywhere, even you’re still across the street and even with the NO STOP sign and a policeman standing right in front of you, you can STOP the bus without any trouble. but the risk is you’ll be honked by every cars, sweared by the drivers and yelled at.

4. once you’re inside the bus, there is NO guarantee you’ll get a seat .. not only you’ll be standing — let’s say almost 2 hour of the travel time (i use my travel time as an example), you’ll also be squeezed in even that bus is practically FULLED.

5. there is no estimate time of when the bus will be coming .. so I actually waited for the bus for almost 1 hour today, wondering have i missed the bus or the bus just hasn’t arrived yet ..

6. and when your stop is there, you’ll be having trouble to just get out from the bus and eventually you’ll miss it anyway …

7. you have to extra carefull of your belongings and yourself (specially if you’re a woman) .. coz you’ll be facing up with thief and those "naughty" hands touching you "accidentally".

well, lots of people aren’t so lucky to have their own car, but i mean if the transportation is good and well-organized, what would people drive and get so stress out with the road?

so now you get what i meant by beauty here .. it’s actually NOT beautiful at all. let’s wait for what Sutiyoso has promised us .. a better and improved transportation and to reduce traffic here in Jakarta with the never-ending road construction.

that was my heart feeling blog almost 2 years ago, and I'm still feeling the same 'till now. There is NO change or a least improvement with the transportation. Sutiyoso (the former governor) is no longer in charge, Fauzi Bowo is the governor now, he who was during the election said he's gonna change the drainage system, fix the transportation problems -- all just BULL!! It was just another nonsense that those high rank people made to get the so-called "less educated" public to vote for him, at the end .. all of us suffer still.

2 nights ago, I waited 2 hours for the bus to get home. I was so fed up so I decided to take a cab home, 10 mins later, I saw the bus just right behind my bus!! Sigh!!!

Just another bad day .. I thought I'm getting use to with the uncertainty, but I guess I'm not, specially when you're amazingly exhausted after a long day at work, you just wanna go home and relax. It's hard to get that ..