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| Image Source: jadiBerita.com |
I'm not trying to be psychological in this post, so this will be just about my experience in using our local public transportation. So here's some local public transportation where I'm from (Just stealing the line from Life Where I'm From Youtube Channel).
There are not so many varieties of transportation here. There are just Angkot (a kind of minivan like transportation) for transportation inside the city and bus to travel between city. Well, I live in a small city (118.4 km²) in a small island (about 11,694 km²). And mostly people here travel by riding their own motorbike or their own car. And traffic jam barely exists here. It only happens during Ramadhan (a month of fasting for Muslims), and it's not that bad actually.
There's also some online transportation like Grab and Go-Jek, but I wonder about them. May be because I am used to ride Angkot since I was little, well littler. It was just hard to move on from this old classic transportation. Just kidding. It is because Angkot is just a lot cheaper in my case. I am living in a suburb, and my destination is also at the very end of Angkot's route (nearly the suburb). Except when I was in a pinch and my destination was not so far, I'll always go by Angkot.
So what is this Angkot stuff all about?
Angkot looks like an old minivan with a side door which has distinctive flashy colors (red, green, yellow, dark blue, baby blue, black, white, and so on) to divide its respective routes. The seats inside were like one in the train (just a lot crampier) where passenger would just sit facing each other. But don't underestimate it, there is sometimes luggage among the passengers, like big luggage. Angkots could be awfully crowded if you were unlucky enough, but in my case sometimes I was the only passenger inside that i started to feel bad for the driver. I do rarely feel bad though, Angkot is definitely not the most comfortable transportation.
Riding Angkot to go somewhere else could be tricky if you are not the locals or with the locals. Angkot is sure a lot messier and confusing transportation. They stop anywhere you hail to stop them. And go anywhere you tell them to go as long as you're still in their route (if you are not, prepare to pay double or triple the original fee). And stop again anywhere the passengers tell them to stop. It is dangerous. I won't deny that they don't cause accident from time to time, but somehow people just bear with them. If there are any attempt to solve this problem, I haven't seen any. At most people just cursed at them.
The problem mostly lay with the driver. It was not a public secret anymore that the Angkot drivers were not the hospitable driver ever. They have the worst temper ever (I don't want to curse here). Not all of them, yes. But so far it's not that hard to encounter a driver who would just swear at things unfavorable in the street. Like they are one to swear since they drive rather recklessly like a mad man at that. That's why I'd rather use earphones and listen to some music whenever I have to ride Angkot.
But I do have some best experience while I rode Angkot. Like one time I encountered a rather old woman and I just happened to have a little conversation with her. She was a grandmother, living by herself in her old age. Not because her children abandoned her or anything, she just wanted to stay at her own home and did things she liked to do. From what I heard I could draw conclusion that her children were not any ordinary people and they could provide her with all the living expenses. But she just refused them all. She said she couldn't stay still at home, so she kept continuing her own business, selling snacks (and delivered them) and selling her own hand made soy milk. She even gave me some tips how to make a good soy milk. This is the most inspiring things happened to me while riding an Angkot. The rests experiences are just ... so so and uggh
That's the kind of transportation where I'm from. See you next time. Bye bye. So how is the transportation where you are from? (Again stealing the line from Life Where I'm From Youtube Channel).
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