Batam’s blue skies, six bridges, and the mother of all roundabouts
It opened up like a huge, gaping maw from out of nowhere.
The sun had long said: ‘You’re on your own, kid,’ and skipped out of town. I eased off on the throttle and let my momentum carry me to the edge of the precipice. As far as roundabouts go, this was gigantic, a colossus of a monstrosity.
The flickering lights from the steady stream of cars, bikes, trucks, minivans and buses entering from the four different points of the compass and dancing around, orbiting the roundabout, lulled me into a hypnotic trance. I felt as though I was watching stars swirling around a gargantuan black hole, just moments from being inextricably sucked in and crushed into nothingness.
Bundaran Simpang Barelang in Kibing, Batu Aji in Batam City on the island of Riau in Indonesia, is the ‘mother’ of all roundabouts. Roundabouts in Malaysia are usually two-laned affairs; three, if you’re really, really unlucky. This one has four lanes. Officially. That night, it was at least twice that number. Kerb-to-kerb, end-to-end, the tarmac was flooded with vehicles. A news article in one of Batam’s local rags described it as ‘Jalur Maut’.
The five of us had just crossed the six bridges to the southernmost tip of Batam – ‘Titik Nol’ in Nongsa Turi – roughly 85km from the city centre, and were on our way back to our hotel. We had started off at 8.30am, crossing the main islands of Batam, Rempang, and Galang, and had hoped to get to ‘Kilometre Zero’ in about two hours. Fat chance. Intermittent showers throughout the journey forced us to stop three times. In the end, we reached Titik Nol just after 4pm.
By the time we hopped back on our rented Honda Beats, it was already 5.30pm. Daylight was dwindling, fast. The entire 75km stretch of rural backroads, while smooth, was poorly lit. This was going to be hairy, I thought. I just had no idea how hairy it was going to be.
When we reached Bundaran Simpang Barelang, we were still maintaining our ride positions. Ahmad Razlan Alias and his son Aqif Firdaus, 15, were lead, Pravin Menon was Number Two, Lan’s eldest son Amirul Iman, 19, was Number Three, while I held the ‘slot’ position. From this point onwards, it went belly-up, fast.
I had tally on Lan just a few feet ahead of me – quite an achievement, considering my night vision sucked, and Batam’s 1 million motorcyclists had all decided to converge on that exact same roundabout that very night.
Pravin, who should have been next, had somehow drifted off to the left. He had wanted to go straight, towards the second exit, but somehow, Batamians, in their infinite wisdom, had other ideas. He found himself ‘sandwiched’ between two or three bikes and was ‘directed’ to the left, to the first exit. I honked several times to get his attention, but it was pointless. He was boxed in and could not get out.
Right about this time, I saw Iman, who was just ahead of me, offset to my right, flitting off to the left, towards the first exit. My right eye was still locked in on Lan and Aqif. I hit the horn several times to get Iman’s attention, but the feeble staccato was drowned out by the overwhelming cacophony of internal combustion, and two-stroke engines hanging in the night air.
Within seconds, I lost tally on both Pravin and Iman. My focus shifted back to Lan and Aqif. But it was hard to get a bead on them with swarms of bikers criss-crossing my path. Everyone looked the same. I glanced to my left and saw a white truck crossing perpendicular, right into my lane, just as I spotted Lan’s blinkers, indicating that he was exiting left. I swerved to the left and missed the truck’s bumper by the skin of my teeth. I was going purely on instinct, there was no ‘space cushion’ or ‘safety bubble’ to speak of. The only way out was to find a ‘hole’ in the melee and just go for it.
By some stroke of miracle, I made it to the second exit. Lan and Aqif had pulled over by the side of the road, near a bus stop.
“Mana Iman?” Lan asked.
“He took the first exit. Pravin too,” I replied.
Our standard drill was to sit tight and wait for them to rejoin. To kill time, we watched the organised mayhem we had just been through and marvelled at our good fortune of having emerged from that without a scratch.
As minutes rolled by, we were getting slightly concerned. The boys should have joined up on us by now.
Just then, a message came in from Pravin. “See you at the hotel”.
“Is Iman with you?” I replied.
No answer.
We hung a bit for a few more minutes, hoping that Iman would come sweeping through the corner, flashing his trademark grin.
It was about now, roughly 20 minutes after we pulled over, that another message came in. It was from Iman.
It simply said, “I fell”.
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