Cilacap This Morning

It’s four o’clock. The dawn is yet to break and the streets are silently asleep. The row of closed shops is bathed in orange light from street lamps. The serenity is only disturbed by occasional roaring of Aman and Utama buses, the town’s only bus companies, prowling Cilacap’s main streets in search for passengers before they depart for Yogyakarta or Semarang. However, the noise does not seem to bother the local lunatic who sleeps in front of Toko Kemenangan, a strip of sidewalk he apparently calls home.

At the other end of the street, the becak drivers congregating in front of Damri pool are rustled from their sleep by the arrival of the first Damri coach from Jakarta. Their colleagues in Terminal, the town’s only bus station in the northern part of the town, are similarly awakened by Sinar Jaya, also from Jakarta, and early Purwokerto buses, the likes of Putra Remaja and Keluarga.

It’s five o’clock. Cilacap is stirring. The firsts of Patal employees begin arriving for the morning shift. They pedal their old jengki bicycles all the way from Kroya, Adipala, or Maos, some 20 kilos away. Riding in long rows, they resemble the Tour de France—without the glamour, of course. Morning chill, rain, or meager pay never seems to stop them. That is until the mass layoff in early 2000s.

At this time, the serabi* vendor near Brug Menceng**, is besieged by her loyal customers. Under their watchful eyes, she skillfully tends to five clay stoves arranged neatly in semicircle to her right. Not a movement wasted. She lifts the cooked serabi from the pan, puts it on the wicker basket on her left, dabs the pan with coconut oil, pour the serabi mix, and put the lid on top. Then she moves to the next stove and with remarkable fluidity the process is repeated. Somehow she also manages to take orders, handle the monetary side of the business, wrap the right number of serabi for the right customer, make coffee, and engage in small talk.

Elsewhere, people start their morning walk to the beach, or ‘kisik’ as the locals call it. Cilacapians have a soft spot for watching sunrises. On Sundays they come in droves, young and old. Bursts of laughter break amidst the sound of footsteps and the pedaling of bicycles. Kids don’t walk, they run. Worried warnings can occasionally be heard as the brats stray to the middle of the street. By five thirty, the beach that stretches from THR, that’s Taman Hiburan Rakyat—People’s Amusement Park, to Areal 70 in the south is rife with festivities. Balloon and toy vendors compete to lure children and ambush their unsuspecting parents. Other children shriek in delights among the sound of the breaking waves. A young couple with a toddler wrapped in warm jacket simply content to lean to each other and watch the reddish eastern sky.

Back in town, Purbaya sounds its horn to mark its departure for Surabaya. The train has always been the favorites of students going to Yogyakarta. If you walk from the front car to the rear, you’re a bound to meet old friends, be they from elementary, junior high, or high school. It happens every time.

The green minivans that comprise the town’s public transport start to operate. People from other cities refer to them as ‘angkot’, a short form of ‘angkutan kota’—the city transport. However Cilacapians prefer to call them by its full name; angkutan kota. There are two main routes of angkutan kota. The Lomanis route caters for the western part of the town, while the Damalang serves the east. Both routes start from the Pasar Gedhe, the main market, to Terminal and vice versa.

It’s six o’clock. The town has fully come to life. The brisk pace of morning commutes can be felt in the air. Students stand in roadsides, waiting for angkutan kota. Often they watch helplessly as the green minivans, already filled to the brim with luckier students, pass them by. Other flocks in bicycles, chattering about homework or their latest crushes. The Pertamina school bus, reserved only for the offspring of the oil company’s employees, picks up students from the town’s Pertamina housing complexes; Tegal Katilayu, Gunung Simping, and Lomanis.

Civil servants, unmistakable in their khaki uniforms, and other workers ride their motorcycles alongside cars, becak, and angkutan kota. Some have children in red and white uniform clutching tightly at their waist. The town’s main street, Jalan Ahmad Yani, is the busiest. On one end it has three schools, Yos Sudarso High, Pius Elementary, and State Junior High 1, while on the other, right across the city square, lies the District Office, locally known as the Kabupaten. However, except for rainy days, traffic jam is extremely rare.

It’s seven o’clock in Cilacap. If you’re still on the streets, you’re late.


* Serabi is some sort of pancake made from rice flour, coconut milk, and god knows what else.
** ‘brug’ is Banyumasan for bridge, probably derived from Dutch. While ‘menceng’ means askew. The bridge is so named because it doesn’t lie in a straight angle from the street.