Driving in Indonesia

The roads in Indonesia are a place where you can expect to see anything. You'll see trucks, buses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles and becaks. You'll see 4 people on one motorbike, kids not wearing helmets and children driving. As you are driving, any type of vehicle could pull out in front of you, you could find the road completely flooded, someone could open a car door without looking or a caterpillar chilling out on your handbrake could sting you (as I discovered a few months back). You will see people transporting anything imaginable by motorbike- a TV, a fridge, another motorbike even. Anyway, it’s crazy out there.

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The first time I rode a motorbike was when I asked an old friend of mine to teach me how in a quiet housing area in West Surabaya. I was very nervous about it but was happy to be learning on a road with no traffic. Soon enough, that “friend” of mine directed me out onto a main road despite the fact I asked him to stay off the main roads. All I could do was scream “We are going to die! I don’t know what I’m doing!”. Not long after that, I was back in Australia and decided to practice there on an empty camping ground. It was much safe but nothing like Surabaya.  When I arrived back in Surabaya, I got a motorbike. The first few months of driving were a little stressful. I didn't know my way around and almost ended up in Madura instead of my house. I crashed into a brick wall at some stage, which wounded my ego more than anything else. Driving here took some getting used to.

Motorbikes can be used to transport anything

Organising a motorbike is also somewhat difficult for a foreigner as we are not allowed to own one ourselves. For the first 3 months I rented from a guy I worked with. He asked me to pay for $150 for 3 months straight up and he gave me a shiny Honda Revo. I really liked the bike and was happy with the arrangement. When I went on Christmas break, he asked if he could pick up the bike and get it serviced while I was away. It all seemed fine. When I returned to work in January I asked him for the bike back. He then explained that it was actually his friends bike and that friend had taken it back. He instead offered me a different bike to replace it. The new bike was an older bike, but initially I didn't mind because I didn't really care so much about what my bike looked like.

My beloved Crypton.

This bike soon became a problem as it would often die at traffic lights and be impossible to start again. Sometimes I couldn't even start the bike at all. Adding to that, it burned a lot of petrol when I took road trips out of town. It wasn't the best bike to deal with as a new driver. After 2 months of dealing with this bike and complaining about it at work on a daily basis, the guy I work with had the audacity to ask if I wanted to hire it for another month. I organized a new motorbike and stopped using the Crypton. I told the guy I had hired it from that he could pick it up from my house but it seemed that he didn't want to take it. It stayed there for weeks without being used.

Being one of the small percentage of Western people in Surabaya, I seem to attract a lot of
(mostly unwanted) attention here. While riding a motorbike, I have found that people will often start conversations with me on the road. People will yell things from trucks and cars sometimes. And occasionally you could be followed home. 

The first time someone followed me home, I started to notice him on my street but didn't know what to do. I was driving very slowly hoping he would overtake but he stayed behind me. When I stopped at the front of my house he slowed down, touched my breasts and drove off. A drive-by groping?

Another time, as I was driving home I noticed a guy on a motorbike stopped ahead of me at a set of traffic lights. He kept adjusting his mirrors and I could see him looking at me though the mirror. At the next set of traffic lights he stopped next to me and asked me where I lived. I lied and said the name of an area on the other side of town. I drove off and he stayed behind me. I was really close to home so I decided to take a few wrong turns. He was still behind me. I didn't know what to do so I turned into my street from the wrong direction and was travelling the wrong way down the one-way road. He was right behind me. I yelled at him to go stop following me. I pulled up out the front of my house and he stopped as well.

“Are you an English teacher?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Do you work at EF?”

“How do you even know that?” I asked.

“I followed you from EF. Can I have your phone number?” he asked. 

“No! This is my boyfriend’s house. You need to leave now! He will kill you.” I yelled. (I think I may have yelled many other things but I don't remember what I said.)

I was lucky that at that moment my former housemate Stinky Steve arrived home.

“You need to leave now,” I yelled again to the guy on the street.

I guess he assumed Stinky Steve was my boyfriend and left.

The police are another problem you have to deal with. I don't have a license and don't really try to not break road laws. Sometimes I will drive on the wrong side of the road, go through red lights or make illegal turns. It's just how this country works. Every so often, the police will stop you. The most effective way to deal with this is speak a lot of English because the police in Surabaya rarely can speak English. Eventually, they get confused and let you go. Sometimes you have to pay a bribe and the bribe you pay seems to be proportionate to how wealthy you look. For example, my Madurese ex-boyfriend used to pay about 30,000 rupiah, most people seem to pay 50,000 rupiah and my other ex-boyfriend paid 250,000 rupiah. When I got stopped by the police they asked for 500,000 rupiah and I argued it down to 100,000.

Sometimes I get frustrated with the police but it is a little stupid. I got stopped by the police in Australia for taking an illegal right turn in Clayton (I didn't even realise that I was breaking the law) and had to pay around $200 (or close to that amount anyway). In Surabaya however, after 2.5 years of breaking the law deliberately every day, I have paid just $10 to the police. 

Overall, I think driving here is great. You may need to think of a good strategy to deal with being followed and you always need to be careful. But once you silence that voice in your head that constantly tells you you're going to die, it's actually pretty fun driving here.