The doors were being closed and people were screaming at us to hurry up and get on the boat. Covered in sweat and grime from an extremely tropical and confused walk in Tanjung Priok, Jakarta’s principal port, we heaved our bodies into the welcoming air-conditioned belly of the huge Pelni vessel that was to take us on our bi-monthly visa-run towards the island of Batam and finally out of Indonesia to Singapore.
The calm on the lower decks was quite a contrast to the hectic quayside that was full of the waving hands and squawking voices of loved ones saying their goodbyes to the passengers. It didn’t take us long to realise the immense size of the boat. We were immediately lost. I was breathing heavily, my temple veins throbbing and inflated with adrenaline after our hectic dash to get aboard. My girlfriend and I had just had a heated argument before embarking about ojeks and she decided to storm off into the heart of the boat alone, leaving me with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth trying to fend off the stares of what seemed like a thousand people.
I puffed hard and cleared my mind. Decisions to make. The sign above the alcove opposite informed me that I was in ‘deck class’, the same class that we were supposed to sleep in. I wandered over to the entrance of the dormitory and gasped to see that it looked like hell.
The room was full of beds lined up in rows, each with a huge wooden draw beneath. The setting was intimate to say the least, as all the beds in each row were connected. There must have been about a hundred in each long room, it was truly a testament to the greatness of Indonesian community spirit; babies roared, men propped themselves up on their bags and read about the latest scandals in the papers, teenage girls got out their make-up whilst their mothers unpacked bags and began marathon gossip sessions with their new matronly acquaintances. The outer walls had tiny portholes that told me that we hadn’t left the port. The garish orange colour scheme started to make me nauseous and I decided it was time to find my lady.
The boat jerked and a huge horn let me know that we were on our way. As I wandered it became clear that there were many more Indonesians than berths. People had set up camp in stairwells and skinny corridors. With my huge rucksack I delved painfully deep into the boat, hopping over families. There were seven storeys to the vessel, the bottom four of which were taken up by our ‘deck class’, the remaining three were a blend of higher classes and mosques, churches and canteens. Leaving the interior to say goodbye to Jakarta I noticed that the decking was constructed with a beautiful light coloured wood, eerily reminiscent of the Titanic. The crush of people, the waving from the quay and this wooden finish gave me flashbacks to the movie. I decided that I was going to sleep out on deck.
I found Tania wandering in the calm ambience of the upper decks. She looked as lost as I felt. She also thought that sleeping outside was a sensible arrangement. Our next mission was to attempt to retrieve the mattresses from our berths to make our stay a little more comfortable. Our tickets pointed us towards two berths on deck six. The huge dorm was hectic and cramped. I was due to be sleeping next to a very malarial looking westerner who was already unconscious and my other neighbour was to be an entire family curled up on a single mattress.
Without surprise, I noticed that a lady deeply ensconced in a trashy magazine had already occupied my space. She was not too pleased when I interrupted her make-up tips to claim my mattress and demanded to see my ticket. The ticket was duly displayed and reluctantly she conceded and moved aside to allow me to remove the plastic and foam rectangle that I was to sleep on. Carrying the six-foot long mattress through the boat was quite an adventure. We had to ascend six floors, up busy stairwells filled with the pungent clove aroma of kretek cigarettes and the slamming of dominoes as men passed around Rupiah like they were going out of fashion.
With our little base set up on deck I was expecting waves of people to start talking to us, as is usual in Indonesia, but it took two hours until a group of men, armed with bottles of beer came and watched us play chess. They were drunk and communally confident. The loudest introduced himself as a sailor who had been all over the seas on trading vessels. He had a small wiry frame, leathered skin and a perfect pencil-thin moustache. His front teeth were rotten and grey and it only took ten minutes of conversing for us to find that he had a huge tattoo across his back proudly displaying ‘Jesus’. He swilled his beer and jeered and joked with us/at us causing his companions much mirth. It was difficult not to like him.
Throughout the day this man and his two, much quieter friends, would come and sit with us. They all had one thing in common; they hated Indonesia, for its corruption and its poverty. They considered themselves fortunate to have jobs in Singapore and receive a hard-currency wage. An average Singaporean wage is a vast sum in Indonesian terms and gave the men and their families considerable advantages at home in Sumatra. The men, as minority Christians, were deeply concerned about the recent surge in popularity of Islam in Indonesia. They told us not to be afraid of the many Muslims on the boat.
Five minutes after this conversation a group of bearded clerics appeared on deck, approaching people with a stern nod and a “salaam aleikum“, followed by a request that passengers should head to the on-board mosque for salah. They clerics were all wearing white haji hats and completely ignored my girlfriend and I as the helpless fakirs that we were. Our Christian friends were given depreciative looks as they guzzled beer. This boat had become a microcosm of the vast and confused nation that is Indonesia.
As night fell, our boat edged closer to the equator and the air grew heavier with tropical moisture. After a gourmet meal of pop mie, slurped down after watching a terrific sunset, our three friends invited us to join them for some whisky. We were taken to a café on the uppermost deck. It seemed that the drinking of these spirits had to be a clandestine activity and so measures were poured with alert eyes under the table. The café was packed as people sought relief from the cramped decks and the atmosphere was jovial with the huge karaoke machine blaring out Bollywood style dangdut records, although it seemed for once that the Indonesians were reluctant to sing as the microphone lot stood empty.
We drunk our ‘Surabaya slammers’ with ease and it wasn’t long before our hosts were getting Asian karaoke itch. They grew desperate for a chance at vocal glory. Fortunately, a steward informed our group that the machine was broken. The three guys were temporarily downcast until their tattooed superhero winked at an attractive young lady on a table opposite our own. She promptly went below deck and returned with another two brown paper wrapped bottles of whisky. We left the café and spent the rest of the evening on our patch of deck, sipping the spirit whilst our Indonesian friends said “bullshit” a lot and argued about the need for female circumcision.
The whisky dried out my throat and with no water I felt badly dehydrated. Sleep came hard but after the hectic day I was glad of the calm and peace of the deck as I lay under the equatorial stars.
The blazing sun woke us early; I was hungover and red-hot. Our side of the boat had no shade and so we decided to sneak into second class and use the showers. What joy! After a hearty breakfast of stale bread and warm ‘laughing cow’ cheese, my hangover vanished and we were only a few hours from our destination.
Midway through the morning, the atmosphere changed. The sun slowly hid behind billowing clouds until it totally vanished. The sky became black, the darkest sky that I had ever seen, and the wind began to scream around the curves of the boat. The sea changed from a tranquil turquoise to mirror the threatening blackness of the sky. Suddenly the heavens opened and let out an extreme downpour. We picked up our belongings from the deck and sprinted inside to a main landing. As the rain poured I looked out of the windows and watched the islands of the Riau archipelago go past.
The landing was packed and I was getting desperate to get off the boat, away from the staring eyes. I felt I badly needed some space as everywhere I went it seemed that a conversation was going to fly my way. After 24 hours I had had enough. Our friends were no-where to be seen, probably deep asleep after yesterday’s earlier excesses. Thankfully, two hours after the downpour began, it halted, allowing me to go on deck and get some space. Slowly and with delight I watched our huge vessel pull into Batam under grey dismal skies.
The quayside was packed with people, porters, relatives and passengers waiting to board for the next section of the journey to Medan. I was more than happy to walk down the gangplank and plunge my feet into the deep mud that awaited us. Singapore was only one short journey away and my mind was full of quiet hotel rooms and huge Indian meals.
