Go teaching early morning


Every Monday and Wednesday my class starts at 6:30 am. it is quite challenging for me since I prefer to take public transportation from home to the campus.

LPP

You can see here an angkot running in front of the Heroes’ Cemetery in Bandung. It is a minibus able to carry 12 passengers (when the bus is crowded and you can’t take deep breath inside) and it serves many short and long routes in Bandung city. Unfortunately we don’t have reliable transportation system like MRT or tram although the Bandung population has reached about 3 million people.

With angkot I need one and half hour to reach my campus. I do hope that someday Bandung has a very good U-Bahn and S-Bahn like in Munich.

The backbone of the public transportation system is the angkots. Angkot is a kind of minibus able to carry 12 passengers and in Bandung they have color indicators painted along the bus’ body. This indicators tell the passengers about the route.

Actually angkot is not subsidized by the government. The driver should collect the money from the passengers and then pay some money daily to the bus’ owner. The owner set a minimum limit of the payment and it is usually high. The driver should have as many passengers as he could in order to be able to bring enough money home.

Although the fare is normally set by each local government, because of this independent relationship, the angkot drivers seldom obey the traffic rules. They take and drop passengers anywhere and anytime.

However in Indonesia public transportation system has many challenges to overcome. For example I take the angkot now. Angkot is very often part of the backbone of public transportation system in Indonesian cities.

And finally when I arrived in my class, there are already 2 students. Out of 40. Here are the two of my dilligent students. Is it too early to start a class at 6:30 am?

Students show up

 


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