After I moved to new office, I always go to work by busway. Because it's the fastest and the cheapest way. The ticket price is IDR 3,500. But in the morning I usually pay IDR 2,000 because before 7 am, the ticket price is cheaper. That's why I often run from my boarding house to the nearest busway shelter in order to get the discount (what a "money eye" girl).
But in the busway there's always be a big problem for me because it's often very crowded in the busway. I feel like a fish in the can (iwak sarden) because although there're a lot of people in the busway, the "kenek" (i don't know what's the English word for kenek alias kondektur) is still pushing more people to go inside. In the morning it's better because most of the passengers are just taking a bath so the smell is still good. But sometimes there're some people who have bad morning breath (i called it "bau umbel") so if i smell it, i try to move my head to the other side so i will get fresher air.
The most terrible problem is when I went home on the afternoon. All of the passengers (except me) are sweating and having a horrible odor. Many kinds of bad "natural perfume" are surrounding me (hoek2). Like yesterday, when i was sitting in the busway to Kalideres (the most terrible busway because most of the passengers are labors i think because they are sweating) there were two men standing in front of me. Of course they had their arms wide open in the air and the AC flew right to their "ketek" (OMG..Ria please help me to find the right words for ketek and kenek). Suddenly a very very bad smell like rotten "salak" (what's salak in english?) hit me like a lot of bullets from bazooka. I almost vomit my lunch (rice with fried chicken) and I tried not to cover my nose with perfurmed tissue because I knew it will break their self confidence. I just tried to be polite.
I remember a story from television or a book (I forgot it) that if a person was sweating and had a bad smell it means that he worked very hard. It's a very good thing because a lot of sweat=work hard. That's why I tried to respect all of the sweating people in the busway although the smell is torturing me like crazy.
The last story about busway, there're always be "ungentleman" guy in the busway. There's a sticker which told every passenger to give a seat to elderly, disable, pregnant woman and children. But, some of people don't care about it especially the men. During my experiences to travel with busway, i see that women are more compasionate than men. Women is often giving seat to pregnant woman, etc while the men try not to look at the pregnant woman because they don't want to give their seat. OMG, what's happen with Indonesian men. How "ungentleman" they are.
In my office there're a lot of foreign people (especially male) and they are very gentleman. One day I was in the same lift with a foreign man and when the lift opened, he asked me to come out first. "Lady's first", he said. So....that's why I always like bule and I hope I could marry a bule guy when I was young.
