In part two of Conversations on an Indonesian Train, Dr Francis Palmos recounts his travels in East Java and his interactions with local people whilst on assignment for the Foreign Office in 1961.

Part one can be found here

Yet young Australian travelers have a reputation for being headstrong and daring which strikes fear into parents who take headlines too seriously, as their offspring venture into places politicians and noisy radio commentators tell us are dangerous and customs, appearances and language are quite uncivilized. Thus it was natural for me as a twenty-one-year-old on a Lokantara Fellowship in the relatively new Republic of Indonesia to take a train through the southern Sumatra provinces that in 1961 were supposedly simmering with discontent. According to the news headlines outside Indonesia and foreign correspondents based in Jakarta, the soldiers of the Permesta breakaway rebellion were still hiding in the Sumatran jungles ready to pounce on anyone from the main island of Java and especially nosey foreigners.

I had accepted a poorly paid assignment from Molly Bondan, the famous Australian working in the Indonesian Foreign Office, to write a chapter on Transmigration for their upcoming 1962 Year Book.

Molly saw no harm in sending me into the Sumatran jungle, but did ask me to avoid discussing politics. The Year Book in my library today reminds me of my trip and how important it is to travel inland, so to speak, even when headlines suggest otherwise. We were not dealing with the China-inspired, anti-Western Communist Party thugs who came onto the scene a few years later, but rebels who had demanded Sumatra and the Celebes at least form their own breakaway state.

My advance for this assignment was around US$5 for the train ride from Teluk Betung in the south, to historic Palembang, with a stopover in a (then) small town of Batu Raja to write the story.

For about US$2 I travelled peacefully by overnight bus to a ferry that took me over the Sunda Strait.

The timetable said the train was an ‘Express Teluk-Palembang’ stopping only at Batu Raja, but it stopped a dozen times between stations, arriving at Batu Raja an hour or more late. I was met by the Chief Administrator of the town, but he was in no hurry to take me to see the Javanese newcomers living in the jungle.

For two days I was taken around town in a horse drawn, decorated buggy and introduced as a “person from the Foreign Office” and given sumptuous food and exquisite fruit. There were numerous references to how little revenue Jakarta gave to the Lampung area and there were broad hints things were definitely heading for a true showdown.

Next morning, back in the village chief’s house in Batu Raja, I was up early and back in a Western frame of mind, to ensure I would be on time for the 0830 train. Worry, worry! I was uneasy, yet my host seemed relaxed about the train’s arrival time. I told me fellow passengers of my assignment (none of them knew about the transmigration towns) while praising their railway system, because we had departed precisely at 0830, as the timetable had said. This comment sent them into howls of friendly laughter, some of them paralytic, the joke running up and down the carriage before it was politely explained to me that I was on yesterday’s train! This one was already a day late.

A very slow day later the entire train was halted, in danger of being swept off the rails by floodwaters. We slept or talked our way through the utterly boring three-day delay. Secrets were unfolding. Many of the men admitted to being sympathetic to the rebels and would introduce me to certain leaders when we got to Palembang.

We got to Palembang almost a week late. By now I was considered one of their rebel gang, so we shared a taxi ride in a roofless, beaten up Morris Minor to a small hotel where several Makassar businessmen, also rebels to the anti-Jakarta cause, were apparently plotting the government’s downfall, between cards and coffee. On the second morning a uniformed Javanese military intelligence officer called for me with a Garuda ticket, firmly suggesting it was time to go home to Jakarta. He knew most of the rebels but couldn’t engage them in warfare because they were old friends.

When delivering my Transmigration article and photos to the Pejambon Avenue headquarters of the Foreign Office, Molly and Ali Alatas thanked me profusely and asked if I had I seen any signs of anti-Jakarta rebels.

I confessed I had been deeply involved in a very civil, civil war.

Dr. Francis Palmos is the winner of the inaugural Australian Indonesian Association National Award (2014) for his lifelong contributions to the betterment of Indonesian-Australian relations. He is a senior Research Fellow at UWA, an historian and translator. 

This article is copyright of Dr. Francis Palmos.