April 14th: Train Ride from Purwokerto to Surabaya to Bangyuwangi
Day 183
In order to catch our 6am train, we were on the road before 5am. Of course, exactly at the point we stopped cycling, the road was perfect – zero traffic and the weather was nice and cool.
We arrived early at the train station, so we would have plenty of time to pack up our trikes into their bags. All three wheels off and folded up, our trikes fit perfectly in our bags. We hired 2 porters for 15,000 IDR each to carry the trike bags up to the train as they have more experience in fitting large luggage in the train, and can communicate with the train staff if there is a problem. One bag found its place in the walk way between the two carriages, and the other was stowed away next to the toilet. The process was much easier than we imagined, and before long we were on our way.
When the conductor made his rounds, our luggage, suddenly became a problem – he requested us to pay him an extra fee for the bags. Pointing at another big bag owned by a local, Chopper asked if he paid for the big luggage as well. He replied that the passenger had paid and when chopper asked to see the receipt, the conductor moved on without the extra fee in his pocket.
Traveling across Java in the train offered us an alternate reality – sitting in the air-conditioned carriage, we could only see large patches of rice fields zooming by. Riding on the train takes you through mainly agrarian areas and only makes brief stops in the cities before whisking you away from the major roads and back into the natural splendor. Unlike in many areas in the states there were no developments along the railroad tracks. No more decaying garbage, no more concerns for drinking water safety.
While I entertained myself with some pod-casts, Chopper made friends with a young guy next to him. After the usual formalities, Chopper started an uneasy conversation. Instead of being a good tourist who only has compliments and doesn’t ask sensitive questions, he started asking the young guy’s opinion on environmental issues in Java. Driven by his undying curiosity, Chopper forgot the number one rule in Asia: must not lose face under any circumstances. Most of the time, people really don’t want an outsider to point out the ugly truth. I eavesdropped on the last part of the conversation and decided to go back to my podcast.
Chopper here, yes it wasn’t the most polite conversation but I did change the conversation when it became apparent that he was uncomfortable. I just had to know what people knew or thought about the water problems. Multiple internet searches turned up nothing. So here was this young man who spoke fluent English returning to his university where he was studying psychology and he was sitting right next to us. I couldn’t resist. From our conversation I learned that this young man believed that the water wasn’t a problem as long as the government provided vouchers for locals to get cheap bottled drinking water. He also believed that the ground water pollution wasn’t a problem as long as clean water was coming from mountain springs. I asked him about the young men throwing garbage in the water and then fishing, and if he found this alarming. He flatly denied that anyone threw garbage into the river in Purwokerto and that if they did there wouldn’t be any fish there. I then stopped the conversation. Cher and I didn’t eat any fish during our stay in Java.
After we passed Yogyakarta, the train track took us to the back roads we had dreamed about. In fact, we were no where near any roads. And the view was stunning – farmers working on the rice fields, kids riding their bicycles and flying kites, all with the dramatic Mount Merapi as the backdrop. We caught a glimpse of Route 15 between Madiun and Jombang, and surprisingly there was much less traffic and even a shoulder.
Before we got on the economy class train, we braced ourselves for the worst – chain smoking, no air conditioning, crowds, etc. But it turned out to be as pleasant as one can ever expect from a 4 USD train ride. It was a fully air-conditioned, non smoking train and it was not crowded at all (at least not by Chinese standards). The food sold on the train was surprisingly not over priced, a box of nasi goreng or nasi ayam cost 25,000 IDR and the complimentary fresh pink guava juice was very tasty.
We had to wait 8 hours at Surabaya for our next connection at 10pm to our final destination Bangyuwangi. After a quick bite from the convenience store and a hobo shower at the toilet, we double checked with the security if we could put our trikes on the train, and left our trikes where our carriage would stop, we settled in and watched Dallas Buyers Club on our tablet.
This picture explains why we didn’t want to put our trikes in the cargo carriage.
Chopper let me carry all my bags across the platform, just to demonstrate I am a useful team player.
Soon, it was time to board the train to Bangyuwangi. The order of operation was both of us carried our bags onto the train and found the seats, while I stayed with the bags at the seat Chopper went to pick up our trikes, one by one. We had to rush because the train would only stop at the station for a short period of time. When Chopper was painstakingly carrying our trikes on to the train, a conductor tried to get his attention: “Excuse me sir…” Unfortunately Chopper really had to rush so he replied “just a moment.” and kept moving. It was just enough time for him to carry the bags onto the train before the train started moving. 10 minutes later, the conductor came over, and told us we had to put our bags in the cargo carriage. We argued that no one had told us that our bags need to go to the cargo carriage during the 8 hours we waited on the platform, and that we came from Purwokerto to Surabaya with our large bags in the same train carriage. The conductor finally threatened that if the train got crowded, we would have to move the bags to cargo carriage. Looking around, the carriage was half empty. It was a late night express train, I doubted it would get crowded. We promised to move the bags if other passengers needed the space. We didn’t have to move anything before the train reached Bangyuwangi at 4am next morning.
Before we entered into Indonesia, we did our research and could barely find any practical information on cycling in West Java. Most cyclists recorded their journey through central and east Java, and we only found two blogs that gave a very brief description of their incomplete journey. How did they know to skip the congested west Java? It is still a mystery to us.