Getaway Part 1

Hearing that your flight being re-routed will never gonna be an excellent news, unless the new route involving exciting cities in some exciting countries (for example, Macau or Vegas?)

So, when I get the news that I’ll be going to Semarang instead of Jogja, the prospect is not that bright since I have to take care the additional cost to travel from Semarang – Jogja. Some of my sane friends advised me not to go instead, buuuut… otuke?? The leave has been approved and the stress has been accumulated, hahaha.. so off we go with the classic theme, “No Plan is a Good Plan”.

In Semarang, being road-blind as we were, the only destination stuck in my head was Simpang Lima, haven for food and souvenir (or so they say). We stood up in the Ahmad Yani airport (what a small airport, btw, with lights went off as soon as passengers leaving -_-“) waiting for taxi.. aaaand funny enough there’s no car with TAXI sign above. Weird. So what I did was, imitating what others did, which is to jump right into one of the white cars with no name whatsoever, and stated that I would like to go to Simpang Lima.

Aaannnddd.. after 5 minutes, I got worried. Was this really a taxi or not? I’d hate it if I have to pay extra for a private limo or sumtin that I know nothing about. Or even worse, there could be BIG misunderstanding that the driver thought I was somebody else he’s supposed to pick up while I thought that car was a taxi. That would’ve been disaster, rite? So there I go, totally out of the blue and asked, “Mister, this IS a taxi, right?”

He looked at me incredulously and asked, “Why? Haven’t you paid yet?”

And I went like, “Huh?”

O wow.. it turned out the system works differently in Semarang. You supposed to report your destination area in taxi booth and pay in advance based on the zone. The cheapest is IDR 35,000 and the most expensive is IDR 65,000. Kwaaa.. kwaaa… kwaaaa…

For you guys who is absolute stranger in Semarang, DO NOT take this kind of cab -_-“ It’s bloody expensive, if you took Express or even Blue Bird instead, you would’ve been charged IDR 15,000. Bah!

Overall, Semarang is a dead city, no one seen walking around. I have to repeatedly ensuring myself that this is still part of Indonesia, while contemplating whether I need to cross the road using the bridge or plain conventional way instead. So damn weird.

Too bad I didn’t get the chance to visit Simpang Lima, hiks. The driver told us that that area was considerably quiet at that kind of hour. So yeah, we went to the shuttle bus terminal instead. Bye-bye Semarang, Hello Jogja!

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