Alhamdulillah, I and the family had exciting experiences during our short break weekend for Lebaran visit to my hometown Palembang, the capital city of the South Sumatera province.
First, in general we traveled nearly all one thousand four hundred kilometers and carried on four hours cruised at the Sunda channel. It required high endurance along the way. In addition the road is smooth enough and makes the journey safer and comfortable.
Second, meet up long and exhausting hours of waiting for crossing the Sunda Strait. In short demand was extremely high compared with the supply for crossing service at the port of Merak especially at the peak time on Saturday (and may be on Sunday too) 27 August 2011. Such situation has been present since several years ago, but I saw no significant improvement so far. As national and international investors have showed their warning as well as strong demand for better infrastructure, this incidence has been truly showed of slow improvement. A waiting time between ten to twelve hours is one indicator to learn the situation. The big question, will there be any sign for significant development in the near future? Capacity of the Port and the peak time management at the port are not well anticipated by the Government. Will it repeat again next year? Anyhow, I fully appreciate and thank you to all government officials for their hard work day and night during this mudik seasons.
Third, new physical development along the way can be seen along the way from Bandar Lampung and Palembang. At Tulang Bawang district, an array of new local government buildings have been developed such as Bupati office building with a good looking design, cultural center, and hospital. Those have created new view of Kabupaten area. Another latest advances are many additional gas stations make cars and buses easier to find out petrol. It was much deferent compared with situation several years ago. Also cellular network is there, and I see no blank spots there all along driving car.
On the way back to Bandung, it was very fresh to see trees with colorful leaves at tea plantation near Purwakarta. Alhamdulillah….Lebaran has given us colorful experiences. (Hus/4 September 2011).