Are you waiting for passengers or meditating?

Waiting for passenger is something that I truly deeply madly hate whenever I was in the rush...

Yup, most drivers of public transportation here will just park their vehicle in random bus stop and wait for their passengers to fulfill the quota (hahaha...) of those empty seats. If there are only few passengers on board then these drivers will prefer to just wait for more before continue the journey.

If we were on the bus terminal then yeah I could understand. Bus terminal is the center place to almost all kind public transportation here in Jakarta... That's the risk if you choose to get on the bus straight from the terminal. The good thing is most buses on the terminal usually still have empty seats and they never park too long for more passengers. But then again, from all kind public transportation that I know there is nothing more annoying then times taken by Mikrolet to wait for the passengers. I have no idea whether they decide to wait because they need the money or just plainly their hobby... Like waiting for the egg to come out...

Once I was in this Mikrolet at night. There were only four passengers including me who sat beside the driver. He drove very sloooowly... I tried to be understanding because he must be trying hard to find more passengers. And just lucky me, the other three passengers get off from mikrolet at the next bus stop. So it was just me alone with the driver. And I was agitated because surely he is going to park there waiting for another passengers. And I was right. There we were... Together... In the dark...

I sat there in silence... Sighed... I want to play around with my cellphone but I feel unsure about it. I glanced at my watch and notice that it has been five minutes we just stuck here. THen suddenly two passengers were on board... Thanks God... it means now the driver has three passengers... I was being thankful however the driver was not. I was thinking now the driver could move on since there were three passengers but nope... He still continue this endless searching for more passengers by not moving on... Another five minutes (meaning for me it has been 10 minutes) those two new passengers probably think they had enough and get off from the bus... Oh nooo... I tried to be patients... But once I saw my watch and in total I have been waiting for freaking 15 minutes that was when I decide to get off the mikrolet. I threw my money to pay the fare since I have been there start from the previous bus stop. Stupid me! If I know he is going to wait there forever I might just get off earlier and take another mikrolet!!

Another annoying thing from mikrolet while they are waiting for passengers are for their limited seats. So most driver would not move on before those seats are full with passengers. Yeah, with that formation four passengers on this side and another six on that side and if they have little bench they could force two passengers sitting there. Once the seats are full then they are willing to start the journey.

 

Sometimes to attract passengers to get on to their vehicle, they pretend to start their engine and so we are going to think...oh no we are going to be left behind... Then we ran to chase the mikrolet only to find that they are turn off the engine and just stay still waiting for more passengers! And if we decided to leave that mikrolet since we are in a hurry the driver will yell at us,"IF YOU ARE REALLY IN SUCH A RUSH THEN GET A TAXI!"

Harsh....