Train Class

Train is one of popular public transport in Java island. The train railways are starts from Merak in the west and ends at Banyuwangi and Surabaya in the east. The busy line are from Jakarta to Surabaya through Semarang at north side and Jakarta-Surabaya through Yogya and Solo at south side. Another destinations are Bandung, Malang, Madiun, Kroya, Kutoarjo, and many more cities. There are four classes train available. The lowest is economy class. Very cheap, but no Air Conditioning, hard and fix seats, many times stop, and five seat abreast. The third class is business class. This class still no AC, softer seat, and four abreast. The fare is double economy fare. The second class is executive class. This class equipped with AC, TV, and reclining four abreast seats. Executive class compartments still attach with business class compartment, so they have same speed. The fare executive class is almost double business class. The first class is Argo class. This train equipped with AC, TV, reclining seat, four abreast, and meal. Argo compartment is not attach to another class, so this train has maximum speed. The example of this classes are : Argo Gede (Jakarta-Bandung), Argo Muria (Jakarta-Semarang), Argo Anggrek (Jakarta-Surabaya), and Argo Wilis (Bandung-Surabaya).

Damri Bus

Soekarno-Hatta Airport Jakarta is not in Jakarta Province. This airport is located in Banten Province. The Government of Indonesia built this airport outside Jakarta to replace Kemayoran airport which located in the center of Jakarta. Kemayoran airport was closed due to safety reason and couldn’t develop with fast city growth around Kemayoran. The runway of Kemayoran airport is use as big road now. The name is Jl Benyamin S., which is the name of most popular Jakarta entertainer.

So, Soekarno-Hatta Airport is far from Jakarta. This airport has good pilot visibility from the sea and enough space for development. The best and special way to airport is Tol Bandara (airport toll-road). Airport toll-road is connected with city toll-road and other Jakarta toll-road. Although toll-road in Indonesia called as jalan bebas hambatan (free obstacle road), airport and city toll-roads often have traffic jam mainly in the morning and the afternoon.

One of public transportation to and from airport is Taxi. There are many taxi companies in airport. If we have enough budgets, we can use Silver Bird that has best service and safety or we can use another taxi companies with cheaper fare. But for the cheapest public transport is by bus. Indonesian people call it bus Damri (Damri Bus).

Damri bus load passenger from arrival terminal 1A, 1B, 1C, and 2F. These buses have many destinations in Jakarta and some point outside Jakarta. Almost of them are bus or angkot terminals (see “Terminal in Jakarta”). Damri bus destinations are:

South Jakarta: Pasar Minggu terminal,

Blok M terminal,

Kampung Rambutan terminal,

Lebak Bulus terminal, and

Bogor terminal.

East Jakarta: Rawa Mangun terminal,

Tanjung Priok harbour,

Bekasi, and

Cikarang.

Center of Jakarta: Gambir train station,

Kemayoran, and

Mangga Dua Square mall.

Damri bus fares are Rp 25.000 (25 thousand rupiahs) for Cikarang and Bogor, Rp 23.000 (23 thousand rupiahs) for Bekasi, and Rp 20.000 (20 thousand rupiahs) for other destinations. With rate of exchange nine thousand rupiahs per US$, the most far destination is less than 3 US$.

Damri Bus is big bus and has about 40 seats capacity. But in the busy time some passengers will be ready to standing due to all seats occupied. The bus equipped with air conditioning and use toll-road. The buses are departed every one hour or less depend on demand. From Jakarta, these buses depart every one hour or every half hour in the morning or in busy time start from 04.00 a.m. (local time).

City Traveling

Some travel and tourism activities in Indonesia are visiting natural attractive place, such as beach, waterfall, valley, mountain and high terrain, island, cave, forest, and sea. The other activity is visit Indonesian heritage which consist of culture, building or temple, and dance.

Indonesia is big country that consist of thousands islands, 33 provinces, and hundreds cities. Some islands like Bali and Borneo are popular, but only a few cities are known by tourists. Indonesia are not only Jakarta and Denpasar, but also Medan, Padang, Surabaya, Makassar, Ambon, and hundreds another cities. Almost all of province capital city have airport, so we can visit easily.

Indonesia are consist of many ethnic, culture, geographic condition, climate and history. These makes one city is different with the others. Every city has their special characteristic. If you want to know Indonesia well, you must visit all cities in Indonesia. So, city traveling is important and interesting. By city traveling you will safer because facilities, transportation, accommodation, entertainment, public information are relatively more complete than in village or natural tourism spot.

If we have short time to visit a city, how to make us feel this city well?

We could try the unique food, walk around by public transport, meet and talk with the people, visiting landmark, and buy some merchandises or souvenirs.

For example, if you go to Yogyakarta, you could eat Gudeg, walk around by becak, visiting Keraton and Prambanan Temple, and buy silver accessories. If you go to Palembang, we could eat empek-empek, visiting Ampera Brigde and great Musi River by traditional boat, watch manufacturing process of traditional clothes Songket Palembang and bring it as souvenir. Of course, in Jakarta we could eat Kerak telur, riding bajay, visiting Old City and many museums.

Maybe little bit difficult to talk to people we meet because not all Indonesian peoples could speak English. But if you look their behavior, you will see the people characteristics in each city. Culture and history really makes every city in Indonesia have their unique characteristic.

City traveling is one of best choice for recreation or tourism activities because we can visit in short time (two days or less), we don’t need to worry because public facilities and accommodation are suitable for visitor, easy to meet people with national and international language capability, and international or standard food available.

So let’s visit cities in Indonesia as we could and discover how rich Indonesian cultures are. If we sort cities from the biggest, the cities in Indonesia that easy enough for city traveling are : Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Bandung, Jogyakarta, Makassar, Balikpapan, Denpasar, Padang, Semarang, Solo, Palembang, Pekanbaru, Menado, Samarinda, Banjarmasin, Pontianak, Jambi, Banda Aceh, Ambon, Mataram, Lampung, Palangkaraya, Malang, Kupang, Bengkulu, Kendari, Palu, Jayapura, Gorontalo. Of course, these cities are only small amount of all Indonesian cities. All of cities above have airport with regular flight.

If we want to visit cities in Java Island, we also can use train or bus as transportation. Off course some cities need more time. For illustration, if we depart from Jakarta to Semarang in Central Java, we need about 6 hours by train. From Jakarta to Bandung in West Java is just two hours by car. From Jakarta to Surabaya in East Java is about 10 hours by train. But if we already at Semarang, we need just two hours to Solo and three hours to Yogya by car which have many traditional heritage and tourism destination.

So, where we could go if we want to exit for a while from stressed Jakarta activities in weekend and limited budget? I suggest Bandung, Bogor, and Cirebon. Bandung and Bogor are just only two hours by car and Cirebon is just only three hours by train. We can go at Friday night or Saturday morning and return at Sunday afternoon. Because many peoples in Jakarta have same idea, its will be better if we reserves (booking) train ticket and hotel room first.

bajay

Bajay is the most popular public transport in Jakarta, Indonesia. Three wheels, red scheme, high vibration, noisy engine, and high pollution exhaust. Bajay came from India as city public transport.

The bajay service system is like as taxi but different vehicle quality. Passenger stops bajay, asks the driver to carry to desire destination and negotiates the cost for this service. If driver and passenger agreed, passenger opens the door and sits down behind the driver. Before Bajay starts to run, passenger must be ready to suffer high vibration and suddenly turn. Bajay could turn left or right suddenly depend on driver desire. It makes bajay very agile and makes one idiom: “Only God and driver that know when bajay will turn”.

Bajay have some advantage than other public transport. High speed, agile to passing traffic jam, efficient, could use narrow street, and cheap. Some bajay drivers allow his vehicle to carry until 5 persons. Of course, the passengers must be slim enough.

Although bajay give some problem like pollution, traffic jam, dirty look, and chaos in traffic, but some people still rely on bajay for support their activity. The speed, easy to use, and cheap cost make bajay still many in Jakarta.

The local government tries to reduce bad impact of Bajay by give limitation to bajay operational area and replace old bajay with new bajay using environment friendly gas engine. The new bajays are cleaner, wider, smoother, and better look than old bajay. The replacement process couldn’t quick enough because need some million rupiah investment per bajay. So, we still found more number of red old bajay than green new bajay. Some people that use bajay daily prefer old bajay because new bajay slower than old one. Actually old bajay more agile than new one because new bajay wider than the old one.

For people lives far outside Jakarta, Bajay is trademark of Jakarta public transport. You couldn’t say ever go to Jakarta if you weren’t feel Bajay vibration yet. So, if you in Jakarta, please tries one of this Jakarta trade mark.

For your info, you must know your destination and the cost first before using Bajay. For reference : minimum payment is 3000 rupiah, until 1 km is about 5000 rupiah, 1-2 km is about 7000 rupiah.

Becak

How many transportation vehicles did you know? Airplane, car, bus, train, boat are most known transportation. In Indonesia you will be meet becak, bajay, and bemo. All of them are three wheels vehicles. Bemo and bajay only in Jakarta. Becak is prohibited in Jakarta but popular in another city.

In Semarang, Central Java, you will feel that becak in this town is wider than becak in Bandung. Becak in Palembang, South Sumatera have unique shape. They use flat roof not circular like in another city.

In Gorontalo, becak not using human power but using motorcycle power. Front wheel of motorcycle replaced by passengers compartment. In this town becak called as Bentor (becak motor).

In Medan, North Sumatera, and Aceh, Becak motor also as popular public transportation but the motorcycle is stick on the right side of passenger compartment.