“…and a small squadron of the tricycle-rickshaws called betjaks. As soon as they sighted Hamilton and Kwan most of the betjaks creaked into motion like a flock of ponderous birds, wheeling towards them. Hamilton regarded them with some fascination, as everyone did for the first time, with their black canvas hoods, their sides painted in hurdy-gurdy colours with pictures of volcanoes and wayang heroes, and lettered with names such as Tiger and Bima, they belonged to another time…”

Christopher J. Koch was writing of 1965, that simmering era of impending violence, when he penned those lines in his novel The Year of Living Dangerously. They belonged to another time even then, and yet, more than forty years later only the old Dutch spelling has changed, and the becaks are still creaking into ponderous action throughout the kampungs and alleyways of Java.

The becak is the Indonesian incarnation of the ubiquitous pedicab, or cycle-rickshaw, found everywhere from New Delhi to Taiwan, and even now as a tourist attraction in London’s Soho, and parts of New York. But it is Indonesia, and especially Java, that is the true heartland of the pedicab. The becak is as much a motif and symbol of Indonesia as the silhouette of a wayang kulit puppet, or the smell of a clove cigarette.

The becak, a three-wheeled pedal-powered bike with a passenger seat, is the descendant of the original hand-pulled rickshaws that originated in Japan in the 19th Century. The design and style varies from country to country, and even from city to city, but in Indonesia the passenger sits up front, with an uninterrupted view of the busy streets. Despite the best efforts of municipal governments becak still provide transport and employment for millions of people across Indonesia, people like Hilal.

It is early afternoon, and Hilal, a wiry man in his early thirties, born and raised in Surabaya, is eating his lunch. He hunches over a bowl of oily bakso and a glass of sweet iced tea, sweating in the yellow heat, at a tatty little foodcart on Jalan K. H. Mas Mansur on the edge of the old Arab Quarter of the East Javanese Capital. He has been awake since well before dawn. He rose in the darkness for the first prayers of the Muslim day in his house on a narrow alleyway not far from the great Ampel Mosque, sacred heart of Old Surabaya. Then he went out into the blue pre-dawn light, limbs still aching from the day before as he strained at the pedals of his becak. His first passenger of the day was a regular customer, a woman from the Quarter who Hilal takes each day to the dawn vegetable market. After that he fell into the typical slow hours of a becak driver, waiting on street corners, chatting with friends, rousing himself from time to time to try to solicit a fare. In late morning he took an Arab trader to the mosque for midday prayers, and later he will take the same man to the shop of a partner in another part of the Old City.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of becaks in Indonesia, but this was not always the case, and despite their timeless image, they are actually a relatively recent addition to the urban landscape. Before the Second World War becak were virtually unknown. There had been tricycles used for transporting goods for many years, but it was only in 1936 that the first passenger-carrying becak hit the streets of Jakarta. The Dutch authorities took an immediate dislike to the new invention, worrying about safety and congestion, and setting the tone for government attitude to becaks until now. They might have acted to stamp them out altogether, but History intervened.

In 1942 the Japanese Imperial forces landed in Indonesia, ousted the Dutch, and brought about an even more oppressive form of colonial rule. While Indonesian national identity felt its way towards the light, cities choked. The Japanese tightly controlled availability of petrol, banned private ownership of motor vehicles, and eventually strangled the old bus and tram networks. It will no doubt pain commuters who deal with the gridlock of modern Jakarta and Surabaya to know that both cities once had comprehensive and efficient public transport systems. The only major source of urban transport that survived under the Japanese was the horse-drawn dokar, which filled the roles served by both becaks and taxis today. But a horse was an expensive commodity, difficult to feed at a time when many people were going hungry, and they soon began to disappear too. Enter the becak, until then an oddity and a novelty. Cheap, low maintenance, and requiring no fuel other than the strength of its driver, the becak soon became the main – sometimes the only – form of public transport. Post-war turmoil and the protracted independence struggle meant that organised transport networks never really recovered. Bolting the stable door was no use after the horse had gone, and dokars never returned in any numbers. But the becak proliferated. By 1953 there were an estimated 40, 000 in Surabaya alone, and by 1981 becak drivers constituted some 3% of the workforce of that city. In the 1980s there were well over 100,000 in Jakarta.

Mid-afternoon, and Hilal is idling with friends at the point where Jalan Sasak widens at the gate of the long covered bazaar that leads to the Ampel Mosque. It is a good place to find a fare as worshippers and shoppers who come to the area to buy the religious paraphernalia sold by the Arabs of the Quarter must pass through the mob of becaks when they leave. Hilal has pushed his grimy red baseball cap back on his head and is lounging on the passenger seat of his becak. He has been a becak driver for five years. Before that he worked in a small warehouse south of the Arab Quarter in the old Chinatown, carrying sacks and moving boxes for a salary. Little by little he scrimped and saved until he could afford to buy his own becak, not so expensive, he says, at one million rupiah brand new. Hilal is happier as a becak driver. It’s hard, peddling in the blazing heat of the day, but he is his own boss, and there have been days when he has earned as much as fifty thousand rupiah: far, far more than he ever made when he worked for a wage. But like many in Indonesia, he dreams of a life abroad. He has a cousin in Korea who works in a factory there, complains about the bitter winter cold, but sends meaty remittances back to his family in Surabaya. Someone once told Hilal about the tourist rickshaws in London, and he wonders if he could emigrate there to work. But he has grave doubts about the cost of shipping his becak.

No one seems sure when, or why it started, but becaks have become a canvas for the deep-seated artistic urge of Indonesia, and are often spectacularly and idiosyncratically decorated. They are given names (anything from mythical figures to boy-bands), and painted in kaleidoscopic colours. In Yogyakarta – a becak stronghold – the mudguards of the heavyset becaks there often carry complex and well-executed pictures, while the leaner, longer becaks of Surabaya come in a multitude of patterns. There is a wild array of colour schemes, from Union Jacks and Stars and Stripes, through Coca Cola and Manchester United to the regalia of various political parties (PDI-P is a favourite of becak drivers, perhaps because the bull makes a fine decorative motif rather than because of any particular political sympathy). Tassels sometimes adorn pedals and the wooden slats of the passenger seats often carry bright floral designs, hinting at classical Islamic art.

But despite their visual appeal, becak have always had a rough ride from the authorities. Since the first prohibitive traffic laws in Dutch Batavia in 1940 they have been seen as the enemy by those who wish to impose order on city streets. From an early stage city councillors complained about becaks. They sometimes righteously suggested that they were a symbol of human exploitation, ignoring the fact that the becak is a form of independent self-employment available even to very poor people like Hilal. But the principal complaint was always that a trundling becak clogs the city streets, impeding the progress of the air-con Kijiangs of the rich, and that they are unsightly, despite their bright colours, unbefitting of modern Indonesia. Registration schemes across the country have attempted to reduce the numbers of becaks, as have police crackdowns on illegal operators. In the 1980s under Soeharto the first major attack on Jakarta’s becaks took place. Unregistered becaks were regularly confiscated and destroyed, and finally in 1988 Bylaw 11 was passed by the City Council, banning them altogether from the city streets. Some forty thousand beautifully decorated becaks, the pride and livelihood of their drivers, were impounded in the name of eradicating poverty and toppled from barges into the murky waters of Jakarta Bay.

In Surabaya too the road of the becak has been rocky. Becaks, and their notoriously rough-spoken drivers, often economic migrants from Madura, are the bugbear and the butt of jokes of people who like to see East Java’s metropolis as the next Singapore. Their manufacture was outlawed in the 1980s and periodic purges have targeted unlicensed drivers. They have been banned from the major roads of the downtown area so the glittering facades of the multiplying shopping malls are not sullied by the reflection of a quietly rolling becak.

But the becak endures away from the multilane highways, rolling through kampung alleyways too cramped for a taxi and beyond the bemo networks. In Jakarta too they cling on in quieter residential areas, despite ongoing official hostility. They have even received support from unexpected quarters in recent years. Environmentalists praise the becak as a totally green form of transport, and point to their increasing appearance in European and North American Cities. In any case, the becak still fills a gap in the infrastructure of urban Indonesia, and as long as there are narrow side streets and people willing to haggle with a dark-faced, grinning man with iron calf muscles for a sedate, gently rattling ride over potholed tarmac, they will exist.

It is evening, and soon the maghrib prayer call will echo out over the red tiled roofs. Hilal is straining at the peddles. He has taken one last fare further south than his usual territory, beyond Pasar Atom, and now he is heading back towards Ampel with tired limbs, back towards his wife and five-year old son. The sun has dropped far into the West as he crosses the smooth metal of the train tracks and he catches the smell of goats from the rough kampungs beside the rails. Throughout the Old City, and across the whole of Surabaya off the main roads, and indeed all over Java, becak are riding slowly into the dusk.

At the end of The Year of Living Dangerously as Hamilton, the hero of the book, flees an imploding Indonesia, the image he carries with him is of a becak, creaking its way through the kretek-scented darkness. The Year of Living Dangerously is long past, and many more dangerous years have come and gone; both Sukarno and Soeharto have faded from the scene and urban Indonesia has changed almost beyond recognition. But in the quieter side streets of the nation’s cities, with the rattle of a tin bell and the creak of an ill-oiled chain, the becak is still rolling, making its way slowly into the 21st Century.

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Every time I came home to Surabaya, for the near-year I lived there, when I stepped off the plane, I thought “Oh, there’s my Surabaya sun”. Always shining, (ok, except for during the rainy season), the sky bright blue, and panas. So strong in fact that when I walked across my campus at the University of Surabaya, I was often jealous of the students that had umbrellas. But, as a fan of the sun, and of clear blue skies, I found it very comforting that this East Javanese village of over 4 million people never let me down.

Sunny Surabaya.

When you find yourself in Surabaya, whether for work or on a stop-over, you should take a few days to look around. The expat community is quite small and walking through even the Tunjungan Plaza, Surabaya’s (currently) biggest mall, will probably draw some stares. It’s not a city about foreigners. It’s also not a city dedicated to the memory of traditional Javanese culture like Yogyakarta. Rather, it’s a thoroughly modern Java. The city is replete with a growing collection of malls and hypermarkets; highly observant Muslims and a thriving Chinatown; mosques dedicated to the founders of Javanese Islam and those built recently with Saudi sponsorship; and weekly drag shows featuring Dangdut performances at the local amusement park (Taman Remaja) – combining bumper cars and waria nightlife in one fell swoop.

Minke (the hero of Toer’s infamous Buru Quartet) hailed from Surabaya and returned there, as many do, to go to University. It’s probably not a coincidence that this “City of Heroes” was also key in the fight for Independence. Indonesian nationalists declared independence here just after the end of WWII saw the defeat of the occupying Japanese. However, the British helped the Dutch re-capture their colony in the Battle of Surabaya, and so the city had to wait, along with the rest of the country, until 1949 when independence was officially granted.

This battle is memorialized all over town, particularly at the Tugu Pahlawan monument. But no visit to Surabaya is complete without a trip to the beautiful Majapahit Hotel, where nationalists gathered to discuss plans for revolt. This thoroughly enchanting spot has been well-preserved, and if you squint you might be able to see the likes of Graham Greene sipping his whiskey in the lobby bar. The dark wood and colorful stained glass combined with lovely gardens and high arches make for an excellent example of Dutch colonial architecture. Even if you don’t stay there, you just must go for a drink in the bar or dinner at Sarkies, arguably one of the best Chinese restaurants in East Java.

For hundreds of years Surabaya has been a significant port and trading city for Eastern Indonesia. Currently, the major official products to come out of its port include sugar, tobacco, and coffee. Unofficially, it’s legacy as a port city has also helped make Surabaya a major sex-trafficking hub (something that has contributed to the growth of the ‘Dolly Brothel Complex’ – allegedly the largest red light district in all of Southeast Asia).

Despite this dubious distinction, Surabaya’s port city atmosphere should be experienced, which is easily done by taking an easy 30-minute ferry over to Madura. You can spend anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days exploring this little island – the far eastern side of which offers lovely beaches in Sumenep. The best time to go is during August or September so you can see the colorful and exciting bull racing – the Madurese prepare all year for these races and it’s well worth the trip. Just go to Tanjung Perak, the Surabaya harbor, and follow directions for Madura.

Gateway to Chinatown.

Kya-Kya, Surabaya’s Chinatown, is located in the northern part of the city, and in the evenings the main street is shut down to cars and a pedestrian area is opened up offering a plethora of Chinese-Indonesian food options and some shopping. Also located in these parts is a Chinese Buddhist Temple, Tri Darma Temple, where they will happily show you around and may even give you an I-Ching reading. Nestled in the Chinese quarter, which is mostly made up of old Dutch buildings, the walk to the temple affords you the opportunity to stroll, which is not so easily done in the Indonesian big city.

Not far from Kya-Kya is Ampel, the Arab Quarter, originally the home of the region’s Yemenese population. Named after Sunan Ampel, one of the five walis who brought Islam to Java in the 15th century, this compound contains Sunan’s tomb as well the oldest mosque in Surabaya, Masjid Ampel. The narrow and very colorful streets are alive with activity and are easily walkable. They all lead eventually to the bustling market that brings you directly to the mosque. As long as you dress respectfully (for women that means having your head covered) you should have no problem wandering around this area and the mosque all afternoon.

Rolling kretek cigarettes at the House of Sampoerna.

When you are done exploring Ampel you should go directly to Café Sampoerna, also in the North. Located in the House of Sampoerna, a colonial-style Dutch compound built in 1862, this site includes both a neat museum and spot to view women workers speedily rolling Sampoerna kretek cigarettes. The food is amongst the best in Surabaya, both for lunch and dinner, and the art-deco décor is delightful. It’s also one of the few places you can get Storm Brew, the excellent micro-brew from Bali. The cool air-con will be welcome after an afternoon in the hot Surabaya sun.

Lastly, if you happen to be in Surabaya during Ramadan, you must go to the warungs around Masjid Agung (Al-Akbar) in southern Surabaya, on Jalan Achmad Yani, in Gayungsari. The area around this beautiful and imposing blue mosque, the newest in Surabaya, comes alive with activity as families gather in the late afternoon to buy food to break the daily fast. With the soft setting sun in the background there is lovely a festive feel to the air, not to be missed.

First published in Kabar 2006.

Surabaya Specifics

Places to stay

High End:
Majapahit Hotel
Jl. Tunjungan
+62 31 545 4333 65
www.mandarinoriental.com

Affordable and nice:
Santika Hotel
Jl. Pandegiling No. 45, Raya Darmo
+62 21 532 8682, 535 7573

Narita Hotel (lovely Javanese style)
Jl Barata Jaya XVII/57-59
+62 31 501 6969
www.naritahotel.com/sbyeng

Places to eat

Café Sampoerna
Jl. Taman Sampoerna 6
+62 31 353 9000

Café Jendela
Jl. Sonokembang – right in downtown Surabaya. Offers excellent Indonesian and Western food in a lovely garden setting. In addition to the food you will also enjoy the invariably high quality live music that plays every night. Also, for the ladies, attached to the restaurant is a shop called Read’s that sells unique and colorful handbags and jewelry – I found it hard to resist buying something every single time I popped in.

Sarkies in the Majapahit Hotel
Hachi-Hachi (Sushi) in Tunjungan Plaza (fifth floor TP4).
Bakerzine (Frenchish café food) in Tunjungan Plaza (third floor TP4).

Night Life

Colours on Jalan Sumatra
Hugo’s in the Sheraton Hotel downtown.
Redboxx at the Supermall Pakuwon Indah

Getting to Surabaya
There are frequent flights from Jakarta, but if you are coming from Yogyakarta I strongly suggest the train – the Executive Class Argo Willis is a cheap and easy way to see the East Javanese country side and it brings you right into downtown Surabaya.

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