On 8 November 2021 we reached Merak Harbor aboard the Sembodo bus. The clock showed 9:30 at night. During the trip, I had already asked the Sembodo bus crew to find us a bus heading to Surabaya. While on the ferry, it turned out the bus crew had coordinated with another bus bound for Java. Aboard the ferry, we too kept seeking information about which buses were heading to Java. The Sembodo bus only went as far as Kalideres Terminal. If we could not find a bus in Merak, the Sembodo crew would drop us at Kampung Rambutan Terminal, where a Sembodo bus agent was waiting to find us a bus to Surabaya. Word from the agent at Kampung Rambutan Terminal was that there was a night bus departing for Surabaya, namely ALS (Antar Lintas Sumatera).
However, as soon as we boarded the Sembodo bus, the crew said they had already secured a bus for us heading to Surabaya. I thought that by the next morning we would reach Surabaya if we departed that very night. Once the bus rolled out of the ferry’s hold, we got ready to switch buses. We gathered all our belongings to move to the other bus. In my imagination, the bus might well be comfortable, or perhaps the opposite. As the bus touched the asphalt of the highway, it suddenly stopped and asked us to move to the bus behind the Sembodo one. As soon as we saw it, our faces fell a little, because although it was air-conditioned, it had 40 seats. So one can imagine how cramped it was inside.
As soon as we boarded, all eyes turned toward us. I asked that a seat be given to us as a married couple, since most passengers sit wherever they please, especially when the bus is fairly empty. That night, the bus that would carry us into Java was full of Javanese faces. I guessed this bus was from Lampung, since that province is home to a great many ethnic Javanese. As it turned out, this bus had departed from Riau. To this day, even though I have looked at the bus name on the wall several times, I still cannot recall it. My wife was somewhat shocked to see the packed condition of the bus, not least at the rear, where some passengers did not even have seats.
We got seats in the middle. All the passengers were ethnic Javanese. Whereas inside the Sembodo bus I had listened to conversations in Minangkabau, in this bus Javanese was the common tongue, between the crew and among the passengers alike. After settling into our rather cramped seats, made worse by our luggage, I was asked to pay the fare. Then the bus suddenly turned toward an eatery for dinner. We got off again for the meal. As usual, I would look for a stall beside the restaurant to save money. That night we did not eat, because it was already 10 p.m.
After 11 p.m., the bus finally set off again. The driver was a young man with dyed hair. Even though the seats were extremely cramped, I forced myself to rest, and before long I fell fast asleep. When I woke, toward dawn, the bus had stopped again for a break. I realized we would not reach Surabaya that morning, because the bus was still somewhere in West Java. The driver said the traffic in Jakarta the previous night had been extraordinary. After half an hour, the bus finally departed again. This time, it began dropping passengers off at several stops.
As usual, buses in Java tend to favor the Pantura coastal route. But morning traffic jams are a mandatory part of the menu for road users on this corridor. The same held true upon entering Central Java province. The extraordinary congestion made this bus seem to crawl along the highway. We simply resigned ourselves to arriving in Surabaya at midnight. Yet when we had traveled from Surabaya to Jakarta aboard the Sinar Jaya bus, the trip had taken only 10 hours via the Trans-Java toll road. I could understand why this bus was so slow, too: they dropped passengers and freight at several locations, which meant they were not very keen on using the toll road.
In the late afternoon, the bus passed the city of Semarang toward Demak. Then it slowly entered the town of Pati. As it turned out, this bus would stop in Pati. I saw that the bus had begun to empty out. Only three passengers were bound for Surabaya: us, and one other passenger who had boarded with us the night before at Merak Harbor. We were dropped at the terminal. The conductor refunded us the difference in the fare to Surabaya. From the GPS I could see it was about another 300 km to Surabaya. The conductor told us that many buses would soon stop at the terminal heading onward from terminal to terminal.
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