How Are We Getting Home?

I've been here for exactly two months now.  I've taken pretty much every sort of transportation there is around here so far: car, motorbike, bus, train, taxi, angkot.  Well, everything except a pedicab.  I didn't take them in Austin, and I definitely don't plan to here.  For the most part, transportation runs the same way it does in any other countries, with some minor differences.   Allow me to illustrate.

Cart/taxi: It's like the UK...it's backwards.  The steering wheel is on the right, and you drive on the left side of the road.  It was weird getting used to.  Owning a car in Semarang is a luxury, albeit a bit of a hassle.  It takes much longer to get anywhere by car, partially because most of the streets are only one lane for each direction.  You also have to watch out for all the motorbikes skipping in and out of traffic.  It feels like you're an elephant and there are a bunch of cats running circles around you.  And you don't really care, you just have to let them do their thing, and you do yours.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Other differences include the transmission -- most cars are manual -- and the highways.  Every highway is a toll road.  There aren't a ton of highways, but if you use one, you have to pay.  And only cars and trucks are allowed.

Bus: A bus is a bus is a bus.  The buses here are a bit smaller, and don't run on a timetable.  You pretty much show up to the bus stop and hope Fate catches the hint.  They don't have fancy-shmancy electric scrolling signs to tell you what your next stop is, there's a person who's paid to do that (which I actually like better,  I can pay less attention and just listen for my stop.)  This is also the person who controls the human capacity of the bus.  If there's no room, nobody's getting on.  We ran into this problem at the work camp in southern Java.  Our group had 17, and it took us 4 buses to get all of us from one place to another.

Train:  Again, same as anywhere else.  Except, obviously, they're built for Indonesians.  That means less leg room for the 5'11'' (178 cm) westerner.  And when you're 3 to a seat, and there's 3 people across from you, it gets a little cramped.

Behold.
The angkot in its natural habitat.

Angkot:   Here's one you won't find in any western cities.  The angkot is a small van with the back cleared out.  Their paint jobs are color-coded to what route they run, but they don't have designated stops.  You just wait for one to come by, flag it down, jump in the open door (closing the door would take too much time) and find a seat on a bench in a back.  For being so small, they can hold a decent number of people; record number I've seen was 10, plus a child on a lap.  They also all have slightly different prices, depending on the route.  And in some cases, depending on the color of your skin.  Now, I've come to expect getting a bit of a higher price in certain situations, usually where no price is actually posted anywhere.  At the market, you're expected to haggle, but angkot drivers are notorious for charging foreigners more than the locals.  If you do happen to know the regular price, sometimes you can get away with paying that, instead of what they charge you.  Sometimes you can't.  I was once with a few other volunteers when we ran into an awkward situation.  One volunteer knew what the regular price was and we paid that, instead of the slightly higher price we were charged.  Not only was the driver not cool with it, but he actually got out of the vehicle and demanded his higher price.  Unfortunately for my pacifistic, non-confrontational nerves, it turned into a ten-minute-long scene, complete with a bemused audience and a group of taxi drivers trying to act as liaisons.  It was rather uncomfortable.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the cream of the crop, the soup of the day, the most popular method of transportation in Semarang:  The Motorbike.

Just about everyone owns a motorbike here.  They're cheaper than cars, easy to store, a piece of cake to handle, and a breeze to take anywhere.  There are entire lots and side streets dedicated to parking motorbikes near popular locations.  And since everyone has one, it kind of destroys the notion of motorcyclists as these big, tough, tattooed dudes wearing leather jackets (American stereotype) or these slick, sunglasses-wearing ninjas with gelled hair who can do 6 kinds of martial arts over the handlebars (Japanese stereotype).

Nah.

Everyone has one, from your average student to the older shop-owner to the small school teachers.  I was fairly amused when in my first week a 5'2'' girl I had made friends with  pointed out her own motorbike as we walked past.  That amusement has since worn off, especially since I've ridden shotgun behind a similarly built young woman.

And there's the real fun part. Riding shotgun.  Until you get used to it, it's like a roller coaster derailed.  You hang on for dear, sweet life and hope to not get pushed off backwards by those pesky laws of physics that seem to apply just a little more at that moment.  Fortunately, every motorbike has some sort of handle behind the seat, so you don't have to get extra familiar with your driver every time you go up or down a steep hill (of which there are many), around a sharp corner (of which there are many), or pick up a burst of speed after stopping at a traffic light (of which there are not nearly as many as most American cities).  Now, all this is all well and good, and pretty much what you might expect from riding shotgun anywhere.  What sets Semarang apart are the traffic patterns.  You know how there are those lines on the road that divide traffic?  Solid means "Don't pass!", dotted means "Ok, you can pass this guy in front of you who's going like 3 mph less than you, but you'd better do it quick if you don't want to get smooshed"...?  Yeah, all the lines are dotted here.  Guess what that means?  You've got motorbikes weaving in and out, not only between same-direction lanes, but the entire road, maybe swerving back into the correct lane just in time to not get smooshed.  Or maybe you're pulling out on the wrong side of traffic, but you can't get over just yet?  Not to worry, just cruise slowly on the side of the road into opposing traffic until you can get over.  Anything goes.  It's actually kind of adorable to think of those California bikers who think they're the bee's knees as the weave through the absurdity of west coast traffic.  They've got nothing on the motorbikes who are literally all over the road here.

And cars are doing it too.  Sometimes the lanes are wide enough to fit more than one car, so that means maybe two or three in a row, plus any given number of motorbikes.  At traffic lights, the motorbikes are all bunched up in front, like a herd of wildebeest before a hyena shows up and freaks them out.  And yes, that was a poor attempt at a thinly- veiled Lion King reference, but the stampede that follows isn't actually too much of a stretch on the metaphor.  The thing is, if Simba was an Indonesian pedestrian, he would have been totally chill.  Pedestrians aren't terribly common, because everyone prefers to take their motorbike to any place over a 1.63 minute walk (actual statistic, based on my own clever cynicism).  However, if someone is walking, and they need to cross the street, they just do it, in a way Nike would pay thousands to get endorsed.  And, unlike Philly, where they'd get honked at and shouted at and probably not hit (probably), there's no reaction at all here.  People expect it.  I have a strong suspicion that drivers' reflexes here are much faster than westerners' because they're never surprised by a pedestrian in the road, or a motorbike suddenly appearing in front of them, or a car trying to do a U-Turn.  Everyone's cool with it.  It's like everyone knows these unwritten rules of the road, and nobody complains.  It's fascinating.  A little scary, slightly insane, but fascinating.