April 10, 2015
Just call me Chris: From Batam to Dumai and straight to work
Having spent the night hiding in the bushes I cycled back down to the domestic ferry terminal at first light. My information gathering sortie of the previous evening had revealed that there were boats going to Sumatra every day, but that they all left at around seven in the morning, so I was up bright and early. What greeted me was an extraordinary sight. The whole of the front of the building was made up of a row of a dozen small ticket-selling counters and as I approached men and women leaned out from each one and shouted at me and tried to wave me over to them in a cacophony of noise. I leaned the bike up and patiently walked along from one to another asking for a price, looking to get the best deal but eventually deciding on the woman who shouted the least.
I still had a little time so I ate a very reasonably priced breakfast and was pleased to see Indonesia making an effort to spruce up the Asian staple of rice and eggs with what I could only describe as mysterious pink things. Then it was time to board and walking my bike down to the docks I was pleased to see that the boat I had chosen looked in half decent shape and I reckoned it was about as likely to make it as any of the others. Getting the bike and my bags on board was painless enough too; with a fair bit of my unnecessary luggage being stored back in Singapore I only had three bags to worry about instead of the usual five. I’d also decided to give my old rear panniers a final swansong for this mini-trip, what with them being much less attractive to thieves than shiny new ones might be.
After the horror stories I’d heard about Indonesian ferries I could only categorise this seven hour journey to Sumatra as being thoroughly pleasant. There were places that I could sit up on deck in the fresh air, and when I got tired of that I could return to my comfortable seat in the air-conditioned interior and watch the TV, which was playing some sort of kung-fu musical. A strange choice which I could only guess would have made even less sense had the sound been turned on.
As we threaded our way through a narrow channel north between Sumatra and some other islands I had a little interaction with two brothers, who said they were both eighteen but not twins. After they had offered me a cigarette the conversation turned, as it so often does, to football.
“What team do you support?” I asked. “Manchester? Liverpool? Arsenal?”
“Watching TV!” Smiled one of the brothers.
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At one of our many stops a big man dressed in full army fatigues boarded and took up a position on the top deck in front of me. There were two places to sit upstairs, the one where I was at the back, and the one where he was in the middle of the boat, which meant I was able to watch him without him initially realising I was doing so. He started to inspect my bike, which happened to be leaning up against the railings in that part of the boat. I watched as he peered at the cycle computer and started pressing the buttons. “Hey!!!” I shouted against the wind, grabbing his attention. The man looked up at me for the first time and made hand motions as if to ask if it was my bike. I confirmed it. He nodded and then turned his attention back to the bike computer, holding down the buttons and in so doing completely resetting it. What an intrusion, what a lack of respect! I felt like going up there and giving him a piece of my mind. But on the other hand he was a massive great big thug in an army uniform with a twenty-inch serrated hunting knife tucked into his belt, so I found some inner calm and left him be.
We arrived mid-afternoon to the town of Dumai, where I managed to get my bike back together on the dock but remained unable to move amidst a chaotic melee of people and luggage for some time. It was as I waited patiently for the crowd to disperse that I was approached by a friendly man who asked me where I was staying. I told him that I was staying with a friend and he guessed immediately that I was going to be visiting Mr Muchsin. I’d found Mr Muchsin on couchsurfing, where he advertised for volunteers to come and help at his English school in exchange for a place to stay. It seemed like a good way for me to be introduced gently to Indonesia and so I’d arranged to visit. The man said that Mr Muchsin was his friend and that he’d direct me to him if only I would follow him on his motorcycle. This I did, through pot-holed streets bustling with madcap life. It was back to motorcyclists going in all directions and children playing in the dirt and smells of street food and Asia once again at its noisiest. I managed to keep an eye on my guide through a few kilometres of this mayhem until we arrived at our destination.
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The man was not simply being friendly of course, upon our arrival he wanted money. I felt obliged to give him a little. Clearly this was not a rich country, and he had helped me out, after all. But my first introduction to Mr Muchsin was not what I was expecting. He was a short man, unusually so even for a nation of short people, with a round face and round belly. Neither of which I count against him, by the way. But his greeting was a little cold, as he showed me to my room behind the house and told me that there was a class starting soon, from 16:30 until 18:00 and another from 19:30 until 21:00.
“Do you want me to stay for the full hour and a half both times?” I asked, feeling a little weary.
“Of course.” He said bluntly.
The first class consisted of three girls aged around 15 or 16 and a boy of 14. After doing the introductons Mr Muchsin told the students to ask me questions and then he just walked out of the classroom leaving me alone with them. The girls asked me quite a few questions, and I think Mr Muchsin must get quite a few visitors via couchsurfing, because they seemed more used to all this than me. Mostly it was fun, but I was sweating a bit with the difficult questions, like “Tell us about the culture of your country” and “What is your job?” As I muddled through the girls’ interrogation the boy just sat sullen in the corner and said nothing at all for half an hour. Then all of a sudden he piped up with “What is your national anthem?” the answer to which was swiftly followed with “Can you sing your national anthem?” This was swiftly followed with “No.”
Mr Muchsin returned and announced that now it was time for me to ask them questions. I knew what the first would be, and turned straight to the boy. “What is your national anthem?” I smiled, enjoying the sudden fear in his eyes.
Once the first class was over I told Mr Muchsin I was feeling hungry, to which he told me there were some restaurants across the street that the volunteers usually go to. I guessed food wasn’t going to be part of the deal then. So I found my way alone to a street stall at a dangerous crossroads where motorcycles whizzed around in the dark. The man running the stall seemed very nice as he explained he had a front row seat to witnessing a great number of accidents, and made me some delicious food, and even insisted to give me a free drink. It was a good first introduction to the friendliness of the Indonesian people that I hadn’t yet found with Mr Muchsin.
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The second class had more people and they were a little older, which was good because their English skills were better and the conversation was more natural. Mr Muchsin didn’t stick around at all this time, he obviously felt that I’d got the hang of things by now sufficiently well that he could have the evening off. So the conversations went on without him:
Student: “Should we call you sir or brother?”
Me: “What?”
Student: “Well we call brother to someone who is older, as a mark of respect.”
Me: “And what if you are about the same age?”
Student: “Well then we just use the name.”
Me: “Okay. Well call me Chris then.”
Student: “Yes brother.”
(Student then proceeds to address me as brother for the remainder of the class.)
There were three girls in the class and I noticed that only one of them was covering her head. I asked the other two if they were Muslim too and when they said that they were I asked about the headscarf and if they would wear one when they were married. “Yes of course, when we are married we have to do what our husband says.”
This statement came from Vina, an intelligent 22-year-old graduate with a degree in tourism. She went on to tell me that she had been offered a job in Johur Bahru in Malaysia, but that her mother had told her that she could not go. Unable to disobey her family she had to stay here in Dumai, where there was no tourism industry, and no jobs, presumably until the point at which she would find a husband to tell her what to do. A sad example of the fate of too many women in this world.
Lifting the mood was the boy who kept calling me brother. “Brother, are you an artist?”
“No. Why?”
“Because your name is the same as Christopher Columbus.”
A slight moment of confusion filled the room, until another boy hissed at him, “That’s Picasso!”
This class was enjoyable, but it was sometimes difficult to answer some of their questions. For example a short boy named Danny, who sat at the front and was ever so keen, asked me why I didn’t have a good job if I was a university graduate. “Because I don’t want one. I don’t want to work all the time to buy things that I don’t need. I want experiences more than money.” I said, but it went right over his head. It was so difficult to explain this philosophy in a country where I knew many people struggled simply to put food on the table. And how to explain that I was just passing time here until my cruise? My cruise which would take me to Australia, where even in a menial job I’ll be making more in an hour than many Indonesians make in a day. How to explain this to people who will almost certainly never be able to go to Australia legally? Getting my working holiday visa for Australia had been as easy as filling in a form whilst Indonesians die trying to get there on rickety old boats. Fortunate I am.
Today's ride: 6 km (4 miles)
Total: 39,975 km (24,824 miles)
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