Planes, trains, buses, and boats (Mar. 5-6, Danau Toba, Sumatra to Jakarta, Java, Indonesia)

It takes forever to get anywhere in this country. We ended up with the last two seats on the overnight bus to Padang, which meant leaving the island early afternoon to get to the station in time. The rain and wind started up before noon, so we had to dig out the rain gear and pack covers for the trip. We stood out in the rain for an hour, and the 2pm ferry boat finally came almost at 3pm. From the harbour in Parapat, we took a minibus up to the station where our bus was scheduled to leave in 45 minutes. Over two hours later, the bus pulled up and our bags wee passed up through the back door and dropped on the floor in the aisle, along with big boxes of cargo and bags of rice that apparently couldn't go in the baggage compartment underneath? The bus was full, and we were disappointed to see that our two seats were at the very back. The 15 hour bus ride is going to be a long one in seats that don't recline! To make matters worse, our seats were immediately behind the rear stairwell, so there was nowhere to put our feet. This should be comfy!


Off we went, on the narrow winding road that zoomed past pretty terraced rice fields for about ten minutes, when we pulled into a bus stop rest area for people to eat dinner. We were there for over an hour. It would be a long night at this rate! And that was an understatement... The road was rollercoaster-like, potholed, and narrow. It seemed we had just nodded off when the bus engines started roaring and we could hear people shouting outside. Ignoring it, we fell back asleep and soon were woken up by the lights turned on and an empty bus. What the hell? We carried on when everyone got back in their seats, and five minutes later the bus came to a stop, flipped on the lights again, and the driver motioned for everyone to get off. It was actually a relief to walk around outside, but we quickly realized the problem - a steep portion of the road had been washed out, presumably by the recent heavy rains, and mounds of mud and gravel overtook the road and power lines were leaning unnaturally. The empty bus made it up the hill easily, but the ruts in the road were a couple feet deep, so it was better for everyone to walk a bit farther. Comforted by the sound of bare pavement under the tires, we struggled to find a comfortable position and fall back asleep. Between bumps in the road that almost launched us out of our seats, never ending billows of smoke floating around inside thanks to the chain smoking locals, and stiff backs from the awkward and limited positions, it was a rough night. The bathroom was at my right elbow, so every time someone went in, the lovely 'eau de toilette' wafted out and people would slam the door repeatedly since it was hard to shut. Are we there yet?

The bus pulled into a rest stop just as the sun was coming up, and realizing that we hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday, we scrambled to find something to fill the hole - but the only identifiable thing we could find was a package of Oreos. Breakfast of champions today I guess! It was nice to be able to see the scenery now that the sun was up, and the surroundings were stunning: steep-sided volcanoes cloaked with rainforest, a pretty river winding down the valley bordered by palm trees, and bright green rice paddies stretching to the base of the hills. Even though it was only 6am, women were up to their knees in the river collecting water to drink, kids bathed just upstream of her, around the corner a lady washed her dishes, and behind a strategically hung tarp, a man squatted on the banks with his shorts around his ankles, upstream of them all. The pretty view was interrupted frequently by the bus attendants repeatedly climbing over me to get to and from the narrow bed that stretched across the back of the bus. We were definitely ready to get to Padang, but with only a large-scale map in the guidebook, next to no signs in the villages suggesting their names, and not a single other person on the bus who spoke english, we had no idea where we were or how much longer the trip would be. We started to get nervous when 9am rolled around (we were supposed to arrive around 8am), as the one town I knew we had to pass through was Bukitinggi, 90km north of Padang) was still nowhere to be seen. Yesterday, we booked our flight from Padang to Jakarta for 1pm, knowing that would give us four or five hours of leeway - plenty, you would think! With no choice but to hang tight until we got there, we resumed gazing out the window just in time to see a huge sign saying "EQUATOR" outside, with a concrete line on the ground indicating that we had just zoomed into the southern hemisphere. Fun! We had both only ever crossed it in the air.


We finally pulled into Bukitinggi at 11am, and we were then certain we would miss our flight. Sure enough, the bus pulled over to let us off at the airport turnoff well after 2pm. It was frustrating mostly because we were deceived yet again. The bus ticket was advertized as being a 15 hour trip, and other than the road washout that might have set us back half an hour, there's no way that the bus could've been driven faster. The 15 hour trip became 20 hours and we were not impressed. To make matters worse, we got off the bus on the side of the road, indicated that we wanted to go to the airport, and were waved into a minibus that we found out ten minutes later was not going to the airport. The driver was nice enough to take us there anyway, where we were surprised to see so many people around - turns out that it's a friggin' Muslim holiday, so locals are flying all over the place. Figures! Just our luck too. We quickly found out that our missed flight ticket was useless, but we did find a Jakarta-bound flight with two seats left that was leaving in a couple hours. We came to the decision on the bus earlier that since overland travel in this country is so time consuming and unreliable, we would opt to spend more time on Bali and Lombok, where we can get around largely by motorbike and really have some quality time there. It meant missing the active volcanoes of eastern Java, but we simply can't do it all.

Nobody appeared to fly directly to Bali from Padang, so we decided to get to Jakarta first and try to find a flight out tonight to avoid staying overnight. As it turned out though, the first available flight to Bali wouldn't be until tomorrow evening, which was very frustrating since we had learned in Padang about a very cheap 9am flight tomorrow morning, which we didn't pursue since we were confident that we could fly out tonight. Lesson learned - grab a good deal when you first see it! Now with the bulk of tomorrow in Jakarta, at first we saw it as a wasted day of our limited time left, but then we reassessed it as a much needed rest day to relax and enjoy. The only hotel we could find that had room and didn't involve driving to the city (over an hour away), was way out of our budget. When we saw how swanky it was and considered that both airport transfers and breakfast were included, it seemed like a worthwhile splurge. We felt out of place walking into the gorgeous lobby with dirty packs and shabby flip flops, but we didn't mind. The room might be the nicest hotel room we had ever seen, with a huge glass walk-in shower, glass sink and counter, funky lighting fixtures, and of course 21 channels of satellite tv and air conditioning! It was very VERY sweet. And with a pool, gym, and internet access, we are definitely going to enjoy waiting for our plane this time!