Pagar Alam → Muara Enim

Day 11 — Parting with the driver, and taken to the police station

A light rain was falling, but it felt like the most refreshing morning yet. At last we would be free of that wretched, reckless driver. We could have left without a word, but as a courtesy we left a note. It said that the driver and the rental company had completely broken their agreement with us, so he should go back to Jakarta with the car. We didn't think there would be buses from Pagar Alam to Bukittinggi, so we thought we would head for the town of Lahat, on the road running the length of Sumatra, which was probably on the route of long-distance buses from Jakarta to Bukittinggi. First we had to get to the bus terminal.

A passing vehicle honked to signal to us. It seemed to be a shared taxi (bemo). It agreed to take us to the bus terminal for Lahat.

At first the driver seemed confident he'd take us to the bus terminal, but partway it began to feel doubtful whether he knew or not, so we had him go back to a place where several buses were parked and got out of the bemo. When we asked at the counter, they said there was a bus to Lahat! We couldn't hide our excitement: now we could completely escape the driver.

From the window of the bus to Lahat we again saw jungle as far as the eye could see. The rain stopped and the sun peeked out. It seemed to show that our journey ahead would go well, but in fact it didn't. We reached Lahat all right, but the bus wandered around the town for a while and then dropped us in front of the police station. We didn't want to get off, but the bus crew told us to, so we had no choice. The police asked to see our passports and told us to wait at the station for a while. At first I thought it was something like a checkpoint before entering the town, but Ooi guessed the driver had reported us. At first I dismissed it, but Ooi's guess turned out exactly right. The police officers were all friendly, and the good part was being treated to lunch for free: a hot meal even tastier than what we'd been eating. After about an hour's wait, the driver arrived in that car with a police officer from Pagar Alam. Now there was nothing for it but to stop running and hiding and honestly explain the ordeal we'd been through. Fortunately English got through to the police to some extent, and one officer let us talk on the phone with someone who understood some Japanese. We stressed that we had been deceived, and our case that we didn't want to travel with the driver any more was accepted. The driver looked very bitter. He then demanded that we pay his travel and food costs home, but no way. If we had been willing to do that, we would obviously have paid in advance before parting. The officers said, don't worry now, we'll take you to a bus stop for Bukittinggi. At that point we trusted them. We thought it was very kind. But after going round various towns, they said there was no suitable bus in this town and started heading for a town in the opposite direction from Bukittinggi. The sun was about to set. Before we reached that town, they stopped a bus coming the other way and told us to get on it. But the amount they told us to pay was about twice what it would cost to fly from Jakarta to Padang, the city near Bukittinggi. Even for a VIP-class bus, that was outrageous. The officers kept straight faces, but they surely had that much sense of money. The bus driver may have been overcharging, but there was no doubt the officers would get a cut too. If we paid that much, there was a big chance our trip would run aground partway. We stressed to the officers that we had no money, declined their offer and begged them to turn back. The officers looked exasperated and disappointed. They must have expected to get a lot of money. We were glad of their kindness, but it's a problem to be expected to pay money when we were travelling on a budget. We thought if we went back to Lahat, where the police station was, the officers would again inflict unwanted favours on us, so we asked to be dropped in a town called Muara Enim on the way. The journey from where we turned back to Muara Enim felt really long. I wanted them to let us go soon. We had no idea where to stay in Muara Enim, but we were dropped somewhere fairly busy. We didn't want anything more to do with the officers, but sure enough, they told us to pay their travel costs back. Exactly as predicted. I became suspicious of everything, and, shamefully, at that moment I even had the biased thought that I couldn't trust Indonesians at all. It's true they looked after us, but nothing they did for us was actually helpful. How much better it would have been if they'd just released us at the police station in Lahat.

Once they asked for money, we said we had none, walked briskly away from them and wandered the streets with no destination. Then, luckily, we found a sign saying "Losmen this way". This place was amazingly cheap, a little over 200 yen each. It was simply built, but nothing like as awful as the losmen in Bintuhan. Today may have been the most tiring day yet. We didn't feel we had done anything wrong, so strangely we didn't panic, but the stress of being held again just when we thought we were free of the driver was huge, and keeping up a friendly face for money-hungry police officers was hard. But now, from tomorrow, we should really be able to enjoy travelling, just the three of us.

To the next day