Friday, January 1, 2016

Happy New Year. Well, the end of the year was not exactly great. I was sick a lot and then I had all the problems with my visa and immigration. I had been hoping for a better experience. But it’s not really such a big deal. I just have to wait until January 7 and then apply for my extension again. And there are worse places to hang out than here.

New Year’s Eve was an interesting experience. I wouldn’t call it pleasant, but it was interesting. I was tired and extremely irritable from my long day at immigration, but I went out for a walk around the city after I learned that they really did celebrate New Year’s Eve here. I wasn’t sure if they did. There would probably even be fireworks. There is no way I would I stay up until midnight just to watch some fireworks, but I thought it would be interesting to see all the activity.

The center of it all was the main park. I walked there and had great difficulty doing so. The streets were jammed with motorcycle taxis and regular motorcycles. It’s weird how illogical people are. If I knew that a hundred thousand people would be heading to the one or two streets around the park, I would not drive my motorcycle there. You know there is going to be a massive traffic jam. So the logical thing to do is to walk or park a few blocks away. But, no, every single motorcycle taxi in Indonesia appeared to be trying to drive right to this park. It was total insanity. Words can’t describe it.

I went into the park, and had a very strange experience. The place was very crowded and very poorly designed. It was exactly the type of situation you read about it all the time when hundreds of people are trampled to death in a big crowd. At first, I walked around a somewhat normal area with a lot of rides for children. That was okay. But then I went into a market area, and the lanes were far too narrow for the number of people that had shown up. And the situation was made worse because Asians in general can be so aggressive in public spaces. They don’t just stand there and wait. They push and shove and grab and elbow. And they don’t exhibit any logic in this. They can see that the people ahead of them can’t go anywhere. But they don’t care. They’ll push anyway. So one person gets pushed and they push the person in front and the next and the next and the next. Suddenly you have thousands or tens of thousands of pounds of pressure pushing forward through this crowd and it becomes very dangerous. It would be different if you could brace yourself, if you could spread your legs wide and bend down like you’re playing football and push back. But you can’t. Because of the tight crowd, you are standing straight up and your feet are right together. It’s impossible to spread your legs or plant your feet. You are helpless, and the thousands of pounds of weight just crushes you, and there is nothing you can do about it.

I got caught in a very bad position, and for a while it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to get out of it. The crowd was blocked in by a steel fence with only one or two very narrow places to get out. Some idiots had driven their scooters and motorcycles into this area and had blocked all the ways out. The people at the front had nowhere to go, but the people behind didn’t know that and they pushed and shoved. The pressure built very fast until all of us were trapped in there and were unable to move. The wave of people behind us kept pouring in and getting trapped in their turn. We were stuck for a long time, and then panic started to set in. People started struggling and pushing more. People were screaming and being pushed over, parents were holding their children over their heads to keep them from being crushed. It was a really bad scene and I had to use all my strength to stay on my feet and not get trampled.

I can understand why it happened in a way. I am at least a foot or a foot and a half taller than everyone here, so I could see a long way ahead. So I knew that it was impossible for anyone to get out. You can push and shove all you want, but it won’t make any difference. So I could stay calm and wait. But the Indonesians were unable to see ahead. They just thought some dumb people were standing instead of walking, and so if they pushed, they could get through. But pushing only made things worse.

I don’t know what changed. I did see one gate in the fence being opened by someone. Perhaps that one gate made all the difference and it broke the gridlock and a trickle of people got out and then that slowly relieved the pressure. In any event, once I got out, I had had enough. I just made my way back to the hotel. A normal day here consists of big crowds of people and lots of noise. So all the crowds and noise of New Year’s Eve wasn’t any different. Just more crowds and more noise. It wasn’t any fun.

The situation at the hotel wasn’t much better. The street outside the hotel is always busy and always loud. But since it was New Year’s Eve, it was much worse than normal. Lots of people had air horns that they were blowing – New Year’s Eve noisemakers. Plus, there were two or three large families with young children at the hotel, and they were making a huge amount of noise. I knew it was going to be a bad night. And it was.

Tags: Sumatra Part 01