Road trip to Singapore - Day 7

Road trip to Singapore - Day 7

Continued from day 6.

Reference - exchange rates:
one pound approx Rp15,000
one US$ approx Rp10,000

Even though I cannot stretch my legs out, I still managed plenty of sleep time and had enough money to eat at the food stops. The A/C was extremely cold, all the Indonesians would hate this and I was afraid that it was done for my benefit, being a westerner, so I mentioned it with a smile to the driver at one of the change over stops. He explained that it was purely for the driver, to keep him fresh on the arduous journey. Well, that makes sense. He then rooted in the back of the bus and gave me a sarong, a long loop of material, to use as a blanket. What a guy, problem solved.

Later on in the day, a lot of people boarded and the bus filled up. Finally the inevitable happened and I had to share my bench with two other passengers, a man and his mother. I stood and let them slide in, keeping the open end seat for myself. I went to sit and saw that this large, broad fellow was half on my seat. I asked him to move up, he shuffled a bit and shrugged. Let the battle begin. I used the wall to my left for some leverage and re-took the territory, but from that moment on we were like two school kids battling away at every twist and turn of the road, just ridiculous, but what can I do, tell the teacher!

When I returned after the next food stop, refreshed and ready for the next leg of the battle, to my surprise, they were both moved over and the whole of my seat was available. It turned out that the driver had seen what was going on and gave him a good talking to. Everything was fine after that and I even managed some sleep.

Quite an uneventful day really. Hope you are not too disappointed. But for me, apart from being cooped up on a bus for 24 hours and wrestling with Mr Elbows, it was quite pleasant not to be stressing out for a change.

Interesting tortoise beetle (blip). Not seen one quite like this before.

To be continued, final installment tomorrow.

Dave