PHENOMENON 'BALIK KAMPUNG"

PHENOMENON “BALIK KAMPUNG”

When I was in Indonesia a few weeks ago, I met some of friends in Jakarta. Some of them came as far as Tuban and Tasik Malaya to be together with us in Jakarta. We stay at the same hotel at Tebet Barat, Jakarta.

They came by train from Tuban to Jakarta. The distance from Tuban to Jakarta is hundreds kilometre away. The train took about teen hours to arrive at Jakarta. The time took by the train from Tuban to Jakarta nearly the same as the times taken by train from Kota Bharu to Kuala Lumpur, in our country Malaysia.

As usual for the long journey the train  stop at about four or five stations to fetch the passengers or to let the passengers get out from train for their destination.

Another choice for the road transport to come from Tuban to Jakarta is by driving their cars.

Or another choice is to use the buses that gave their service everyday from Tuban to Jakarta and other places or town on the same road to Jakarta or the vice versa.

For air transport, there is no plain fly directly from Tuban to Jakarta. If they want to use the flight, they have to go to the airport of Surabaya. It took about two hours by car to arrive from Tuban to the airport.

They told us that the bus took about 19 hours to arrive from Tuban to Jakarta because of the traffic jam. The people have to be satisfied with the situation because they have no other choice to go from place to place.

They also told us that, if they drive a car, it took three or for four days to arrive at the same places. Meanwhile they have to stop for rest or sleep at the petrol station.

During the usual times, they have to buy the train tickets, or karcis called by Indonesian for one month or more earlier than the time for departure.

“But for the big days, like Hari Raya Idilfitri that will come soon this year, we have to buy the tickets five or six month earlier. If you are late don’t hope that you will get the tickets. All are sold out”.

“Masyallah”, came out automatically the word from my mouth when I heard that.

All my friends laughed to see me shock when I heard what they have said. To them it is usual, that happen every day, every week, every month and every year.

When I came back to Malaysia, through the papers I know that we are still face the same problem for the selling of the bus tickets for balik kampung. Some people among us that greedy take the opportunity to make easy money by selling forbidden tickets to the people. They bought the tickets from the tickets counters in big quantity and sold them to the people who is in great need for the tickets to balik kampung. The price of the forbidden tickets are surely not the same but sky-high. But what to do, the people have no choice.

The same problems have been happen for decades and still continue to happen to days. All the misfortunes will fall on the people that already lived in hardship life.

We hope more actions should be taken by the authority to stop the culprits from unending oppressively the people and stern law action should  be taken on them

Lorong Masjid,

Kg.Kubang Siput,

PT.KB.Kelantan.