An hour in a romantic KRL

In the last week end I didn't have any vacation, because I had to work for drafting a government regulation for domestic loans in Bogor. You can see the story at this newspaper. But I don't want to tell about my work, I want to tell an interesting one that is a story about my travel between Jakarta and Bogor that is about riding KRL. It was my first experience after coming back from Amsterdam. There was an hour in a romantic KRL with its incidences. I guarrantee that It was much more interesting than a movie starred by Nicholas Saputra, 3 Days for Forever (3 Hari untuk Selamanya), or other stories about travelling.

Friday night, 15/06/2007, 07.15 PM, New Pasar Minggu Station.

After waiting the train for 15 minutes, the first train was coming. Oh my God, that train was very-very crowded. No space everywhere. I had no idea how to come into the train. The
opportunity was only 15 seconds, and I still couldn't get the way for joining with people on
the train. The train started to move on, and some people tried to ascend to the roof of train. I just saw them, because I had no bravery to do it. Not too long, the train was gone, and I had to be patient for waiting the next train.

20 minutes left, the second train was coming. It was still as crowded as the first train. I had no choice, I enforced to come into the train. Did I do that? Just a little, I held by the baluster of the door train. It's okay, then the train had moved on. I could defense my purchase on the baluster, and luckily, the train ran smoothly.

On the next station, there were so many passengers waiting for the train. When the train stopped there, those passengers enforced to come into the train. I was initially standing on the door, but on a moment I was already in the train because I was pushed.

This happened persistently until New Depok Station, and the passengers started to leave the train afterward.

My body was sweat as same as all passengers. I was trying to enjoy the situation and I begun to dream if I leaped on the train in Amsterdam. Oups, no-no, I was still in KRL, nice and lovely KRL.

"It's okay, it just takes no more than one hour. Just be patient." I tried to cheer up my own heart. Then I remembered my promise when I was studying in Amsterdam, that I will always love my country. Loving KRL is just one of all.

I am sorry I didn't bring my digital camera, eventhough if I brought it, I am sure that I couldn't use it.

That is ours. The KRL is our face, the real Indonesia's face. We can see Indonesia in the small scale without visiting Beautiful Indonesia Miniature (Taman Mini Indonesia Indah-TMII). The different is that KRL is our back side and TMII is our front side, the front side with thick make-up.

Do you know how often those people ride KRL? Surprisingly, they do every day, off course except saturday and sunday. So very often. What does it tell us? Everybody loves KRL. Eventhough necessity, whatever the condition, KRL is our beloved transportation.

This is showing a mismatch between public concern with government policy. KRL has a huge market, but government doesn't care and realize that there is a big opportunity to develop the proper mass transportation connecting Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi (Jabodetabek). Or maybe government does realize that, but they don't know how to take action because...... I can't speculate what government thinking is. If because there is no short term gain, we only can pray for a coming good policy maker. But again..., I am one of the policy makers.