The Sun Rises in the East
Following through Her Highness Mother Queen of myUniverse designs and plans, I set out on a journey by means of a train to the East to join Her Highness' party by Friday morning. It started out not as pleasant as one might expect as an escape from the City of Hells and Angels (read: Jakarta)
The morning was bright but the afternoon was rainy and under such weather I managed to stop a cab, only to travel for over an hour through the shitty traffic from Brawijaya-Prapanca to the Gambir train station. The one hour cab trip was... annoying. The driver kept talking on the phone for over 50 minutes of, and kept on going slow when I urged him to go faster when it was necessary. I nearly missed my train. And what's more annoying was to listen at half of the phone conversation. Apparently the other end tried to convince my cab driver to join some sort of an MLM enterprise, at first my cab driver seemed to resist the idea. You think if you get offered something fishy and you're not interested you'll just say "no thanks I am not interested you can count me out" and be done with it.
But no.
With Tegal Javanese lingo, my cab driver pingponged this offer back and forth with his friend at the other end... for the entirety of the trip. At one point after 20 minutes involuntary eavesdropping I started to refrain myself from screaming : GET IT OVER WITH, ARE YOU IN OR ARE YOU NOT!
Yes I can be that patient. I was only trying to keep my spirit up because I still have to endure the 13hrs+ train trip. The cab driver was proven to be quite... thick. His half of the cursed phone convos consisted of: How? - Can you repeat that again? - It's impossible to get that amount of money in such a short term - Gee am not really sure - This is Jakarta, nothing is that easy - Gee am not really keen on the idea. And for a fractal of seconds, anyone would be so sure he would finally refused and turned off his phone. But nooooooooooo.... Each of those words can be heard about 6-12 times or even more for the duration of 1 hour. And he never made up his mind.
Nearing the critical minutes and our cab was taking a turn in front of Istana, I finally said with very sternly displeased tone: PAK BISA LEBIH CEPET NGGAK NIH. But, alas, he was more concerned of the conversation regarding imagined profit of this MLM business. Until I leaped out of the cab after hastily handing over the cab fare, he was still on the phone.
Good thing the train was actually a bit late by 15 minutes. Sitting next to me was a nun, traveling with two others, heading for Madiun. The nun sitting next to me was quite conversational. She asked me where I'm from etc, and I replied as much for the convenient of courtesy, and until the nun got off at Madiun neither of us known each other's name.
By 20 minutes since the train left the station, a cheery Happy Birthday song can be heard from the other end of my train car. A group of elderly were celebrating the birthday of one of them. They're a group of Student Soldier veterans. Some of the ladies from the group walked along our train car and shared cakes and cookies to all of the passengers. :) I just think it's the sweetest thing. It kinda made me forget about the no but yeah but no but yeah cab driver from earlier.
Hey, hey the birthday "boy" is now EIGHT-y!
Approximately 05.15, I opened the window curtain. I haven't seen this for a while. The sun rises in the East. I haven't been here for a while, also. The East where the sun rises.
I called J immediately, he was still up albeit veryveryvery sleepy. :">
Next I called Her Highness Mother Queen of myUniverse, letting her know that within over an hour I will arrive at the destinated station.
Next: Batam
The morning was bright but the afternoon was rainy and under such weather I managed to stop a cab, only to travel for over an hour through the shitty traffic from Brawijaya-Prapanca to the Gambir train station. The one hour cab trip was... annoying. The driver kept talking on the phone for over 50 minutes of, and kept on going slow when I urged him to go faster when it was necessary. I nearly missed my train. And what's more annoying was to listen at half of the phone conversation. Apparently the other end tried to convince my cab driver to join some sort of an MLM enterprise, at first my cab driver seemed to resist the idea. You think if you get offered something fishy and you're not interested you'll just say "no thanks I am not interested you can count me out" and be done with it.
But no.
With Tegal Javanese lingo, my cab driver pingponged this offer back and forth with his friend at the other end... for the entirety of the trip. At one point after 20 minutes involuntary eavesdropping I started to refrain myself from screaming : GET IT OVER WITH, ARE YOU IN OR ARE YOU NOT!
Yes I can be that patient. I was only trying to keep my spirit up because I still have to endure the 13hrs+ train trip. The cab driver was proven to be quite... thick. His half of the cursed phone convos consisted of: How? - Can you repeat that again? - It's impossible to get that amount of money in such a short term - Gee am not really sure - This is Jakarta, nothing is that easy - Gee am not really keen on the idea. And for a fractal of seconds, anyone would be so sure he would finally refused and turned off his phone. But nooooooooooo.... Each of those words can be heard about 6-12 times or even more for the duration of 1 hour. And he never made up his mind.
Nearing the critical minutes and our cab was taking a turn in front of Istana, I finally said with very sternly displeased tone: PAK BISA LEBIH CEPET NGGAK NIH. But, alas, he was more concerned of the conversation regarding imagined profit of this MLM business. Until I leaped out of the cab after hastily handing over the cab fare, he was still on the phone.
Good thing the train was actually a bit late by 15 minutes. Sitting next to me was a nun, traveling with two others, heading for Madiun. The nun sitting next to me was quite conversational. She asked me where I'm from etc, and I replied as much for the convenient of courtesy, and until the nun got off at Madiun neither of us known each other's name.
By 20 minutes since the train left the station, a cheery Happy Birthday song can be heard from the other end of my train car. A group of elderly were celebrating the birthday of one of them. They're a group of Student Soldier veterans. Some of the ladies from the group walked along our train car and shared cakes and cookies to all of the passengers. :) I just think it's the sweetest thing. It kinda made me forget about the no but yeah but no but yeah cab driver from earlier.
Hey, hey the birthday "boy" is now EIGHT-y!
Approximately 05.15, I opened the window curtain. I haven't seen this for a while. The sun rises in the East. I haven't been here for a while, also. The East where the sun rises.
I called J immediately, he was still up albeit veryveryvery sleepy. :">Next I called Her Highness Mother Queen of myUniverse, letting her know that within over an hour I will arrive at the destinated station.
Next: Batam
Comments