Yet another travelling experience – what should have taken 12hrs between Jakarta to Yogykarta took 24.  We’ll spare you the nitty gritty and just give you a quick overview.

To avoid the (generally) overcrowded and smokey public buses, 5 of us hired a private mini bus for our journey.  We were an hour late leaving so to creep back some time the driver drove like a god damn looney, to the point where we had to threaten violence before he slowed down.

About 4 hrs in we got a puncture had a quick change and were back on the road.  Not for long.  At 1am we got another and of course had no spare. After two hours of sitting on the grass verge he loads us in and drives 25 mile (on the flat) to the nearest town.  A new tyre and rim and we were off again for a few more hours. 

At 9am he woke us to change buses.  It was nice and clean and we were delighted to be leaving the arsehole behind.  Fuck me pink, about 4 hours in, this (new) bus starts chugging and, eventually, comes to a halt. Several belts with a hammer and we were away again. This process happened about 10 times before the bus finally gave up (thankfully).  He had only gone and completely smashed the fan so the engine overheated to the point that the battery points had melted – we have no idea why he thought hitting the fan would solve what could have been as simple as dirty fuel. 

We waited 2hrs before we decided to cut our losses and jump on the next public bus.  Thankfully the mood was lightened when a local played us a few of tunes on his guitar. Finally we arrived at our destination – it’s a lesson learned public buses from now on!

Just a few photos of our experience.

Bus no.1

Bus no.2

Public bus.