On 5 September, I travelled by train from Kuningan to Jakarta. My first destination was Hotel Borobudur, where the Global Islamic Holistic Education Summit, or GIHES, was being held. I attended the first day’s programme from the opening ceremony through the discussions that followed.
Jakarta, however, was only the first stop. After GIHES, I needed to travel to Denpasar for the International Conference on Social Sciences, or ICOSS.
Two conferences in two cities, with very little time between them. On paper, the plan seemed straightforward. My flight was booked, the timetable had been checked, and all I needed to do was fly from Jakarta to Denpasar.
The journey had other plans.
In the early hours of 6 September, before the dawn call to prayer, I was already on my way to the airport. One of the ustaz kindly drove me there. We arrived so early that we still had to wait for the time of the Subuh prayer.
The departure screen showed my flight as on schedule. That was reassuring. At the same time, announcements over the airport loudspeakers said that airport services had been temporarily suspended because of volcanic activity from Anak Krakatau.
We continued to hope that the disruption would be brief. After all, my flight still appeared as on schedule, as did several others.
We entered the waiting area and kept watching the screen while listening to one announcement after another. Shortly before seven o’clock, the situation became clear. The status of my flight changed to cancelled.
It was not the only one. The other flights that had remained on schedule were eventually cancelled as well.
That was when the real journey began.
I still had to reach Denpasar for the next conference. Waiting at the airport without knowing when it would reopen was not an option. I began looking for another route. If I could not fly from Jakarta to Denpasar, perhaps I could fly from Surabaya instead.
I searched for a Surabaya-Denpasar ticket. Alhamdulillah, there was still a flight at around nine that evening. I calculated the time. If I could catch a train from Jakarta to Surabaya immediately, the connection should still be possible. I booked the flight.
Now I only had to find a train to Surabaya.
Several departures still appeared to be available in the KAI application, but the tickets could not be purchased when I tried to complete the booking. Many passengers affected by the cancellations had probably reached the same conclusion and were now trying to travel to Surabaya by land.
I took a taxi towards Gambir and continued searching for a ticket along the way. My reasoning was simple: if the application failed, perhaps I could buy a ticket at the station as a walk-in passenger.
When I arrived at Gambir, the answer was brief and firm: ‘There are no tickets left to Surabaya, Sir.’
That was a problem. I already had a flight from Surabaya to Denpasar, and it had not been cancelled. But how was I going to reach Surabaya?
I went through the train schedules again, one service at a time, and found the Sembrani. Its arrival time in Surabaya would still allow me to reach the airport for the evening flight. Unfortunately, I could no longer book the train from Gambir.
Then I tried a different approach. If I could not board the Sembrani in Jakarta, could I intercept it in Cirebon? I entered Cirebon-Surabaya into the application. A seat appeared.
The same train that I could not book from Gambir was still available from Cirebon. I secured the ticket immediately.
One problem was solved, only for another to appear. How could I reach Cirebon before the train departed?
Arranging a rental car would take time, so I tried booking an online taxi directly from Jakarta to Cirebon. Alhamdulillah, a young driver accepted the long trip. His vehicle was electric.
I explained the situation. ‘We must reach Cirebon before noon. Can we make it?’ He checked the map and calculated the journey. ‘Yes, Sir,’ he replied.
I told him that we were chasing a train and that speed mattered more than comfort for the moment. A little later, he asked, ‘May I weave through the traffic, Sir?’ ‘Go ahead,’ I said.
And so we raced towards Cirebon. Because we were travelling in an electric car, we also had to allow time for charging along the way. Even with that constraint, the young driver did everything he could to keep us on schedule.
My family kept asking for updates. ‘Have you flown yet?’ they asked. I answered calmly, ‘We have rerouted the flight through Surabaya. Now we are taking the train.’
It sounded as though everything had been settled and I was already sitting comfortably aboard the train. In fact, I was still in an online taxi between Jakarta and Cirebon, hoping that the Sembrani would not leave without me.
Alhamdulillah, we reached Cirebon at about 11.30 a.m. There was even time to pray. The train was running around fifteen minutes late. A delay that would normally frustrate passengers felt like a small act of mercy that day.
After racing against the clock since dawn, I could finally sit for a moment and wait. The Sembrani arrived, and I continued towards Surabaya.
The station in Surabaya was extremely crowded. Many passengers had apparently faced the same problem. Their flights had been cancelled, and they were searching for alternative routes through Surabaya.
From the station, I found another taxi to Juanda International Airport. Alhamdulillah, the road was clear enough, and I arrived at about eight in the evening, one hour before my flight to Denpasar. Only then could I breathe properly again.
What should have been a simple flight from Jakarta to Denpasar had become a much longer route: the airport, Gambir, the toll road, Cirebon, the Sembrani train, Surabaya, Juanda, and finally a flight to Denpasar.
When the air route closed, we took the road. When tickets from Gambir sold out, we intercepted the train in Cirebon. When the Jakarta flight was cancelled, we simply ‘moved’ the flight to Surabaya.
All of this was necessary to connect two conferences, one in Jakarta and the other in Bali.
It remains one of my most memorable journeys. Seeking knowledge and sharing it sometimes require more than preparing a paper and presentation slides. On this occasion, they also required quick decisions and a willingness to take a route that had never been part of the plan.
Academic effort does not always happen inside a conference hall. Sometimes it happens at a closed airport, in a ticket application that refuses to complete a booking, inside an electric taxi racing towards Cirebon, and on a train that must be intercepted along the way.
I hope that the exhaustion was part of a worthwhile endeavour. When the purpose is to seek and share knowledge, even a difficult journey can become a lesson and, eventually, a story worth telling.