The news of Brother Syamsul’s passing also spread widely in Banda Aceh. While we waited for the steady stream of guests, we also received word that there was a Proposal Seminar at UIN Imam Bonjol that we had to attend. That event was held on the 3rd to the 5th in Padang. In addition, there was another event we had to attend in Banda Aceh, in connection with drafting the Governor’s Regulation on the Grand Design of Aceh’s Islamic Sharia. So I made sure that we would head to Surabaya to collect Nyak Ver only after I had completed those two agendas.
So, on 3 November 2021, we decided to set off again to collect Nyak Ver, which had already arrived in Surabaya on 30 October 2021. The route this time was Banda Aceh–Padang–Surabaya. Initially, I bought plane tickets from Banda Aceh all the way to Surabaya, with a transit in Padang to attend the Research Proposal Seminar at UIN Imam Bonjol. This time, however, we only had to take an Antigen Swab, not a PCR test, to board the plane. That way, our funds would not be drained again, as had happened in Java and Makassar.
On 3 November, we boarded the plane, once again bringing all of our touring equipment: clothes, helmet, and other gear. As soon as we were aboard, my wife began to feel faint and complained of her fear of flying on Wings Air. At first, she had indeed been insistent
about taking the bus to Padang and Surabaya. But to conserve energy, I went ahead and booked plane tickets anyway. From the moment of take off until we reached Medan, she kept complaining about the state of the plane and the unfriendly weather. She even nearly fainted once we took off from Kualanamu toward Padang.
Upon reaching Padang, she kept insisting that she did not want to fly on to Surabaya. She was afraid. In the end, I gave in and we did not take the plane, even though the ticket had already been purchased. Of course, to obtain a refund , the airline would deduct a fee. But I paid that no mind. She then chose to take the bus from Padang to Surabaya. This time, she booked a Sembodo bus, which departs from Bukittinggi to Jakarta. I simply agreed. The ticket was bought through a bus agent in Bukittinggi, even though the plane had been only 250 thousand cheaper to Surabaya. Perhaps she had grown addicted to riding the bus during our earlier trip from Surabaya back to Aceh.
On 7 November 2021, we once again boarded a bus from Padang to Surabaya. As it happened, the Sembodo bus picked up Jakarta-bound passengers in Padang and then took them to Solok. Only there were they transferred onto the bus heading for Jakarta. The Sembodo bus was fairly nice and luxurious, just as advertised in social media posts. But all of that, as it turned out, was not what my wife had expected. Once again she was somewhat disappointed with the state of the bus. Evidently the bus shown in the brochure was not the bus we actually boarded.
Balancing Duty and Grief
One of the quietly remarkable aspects of this stage was how the demands of professional life pressed in even during a period of mourning. In the days after losing his brother, there was still an academic proposal seminar in Padang and the drafting of an important provincial regulation on Aceh’s Islamic Sharia to attend to. Rather than abandoning either responsibility, the plan was reshaped so that both obligations could be honored before the journey to collect the motorcycle resumed. It is a reminder that long expeditions rarely unfold in isolation from ordinary life; family, work, and travel constantly overlap, and part of completing a journey like this is learning to weave those threads together without letting any one of them unravel.
The Shifting Cost of Pandemic Travel
Travel during this era carried an extra layer of expense and bureaucracy that shaped nearly every decision. In earlier legs across Java and Makassar, the requirement for PCR tests had steadily drained the travel budget, since each flight demanded a fresh and costly result. By November, the rules had eased so that a cheaper antigen swab was sufficient to board a plane, a small change that made a real difference to the finances of a months-long trip. For anyone planning extended travel through uncertain conditions, the lesson is clear: the cost of compliance can rival the cost of the tickets themselves, and staying alert to changing regulations can save both money and stress.
When a Travel Companion Fears Flying
Perhaps the most human thread in this chapter is the tension between efficiency and comfort when traveling with a partner who dreads flying. Booking flights made perfect sense on paper: they conserve energy and save days of road time. But a ticket means little if the person holding it is nearly fainting with anxiety at takeoff. Giving in and forfeiting a paid airfare to switch to a bus was not the economical choice, yet it was the compassionate one. On a long journey shared with a loved one, the wellbeing of your companion often matters more than the itinerary, and a good traveler learns to treat those moments of surrender not as failures of planning but as acts of care.
The Gap Between the Brochure and the Bus
The recurring disappointment with the buses — the gleaming, luxurious coaches promised in social media posts versus the tired vehicles that actually arrived — is a familiar frustration for overland travelers everywhere. Marketing images sell an aspiration; the road delivers reality. Aceh operators tend to reserve their finest coaches for the busy Banda Aceh–Medan corridor, while the long-haul runs to Java are often served by older machines. Understanding this pattern helps set expectations: choose operators by reputation and word of mouth rather than by glossy brochures, and be prepared for the vehicle that shows up to fall somewhat short of the one advertised.
Why the Journey Had to Continue
Beneath all the logistics lay a single, stubborn purpose: Nyak Ver, the motorcycle that had carried them across the archipelago, was waiting in Surabaya, and the expedition could not be considered complete until it was ridden home. Even after the exhaustion of grief and the discomfort of repeated bus journeys, that unfinished business pulled them onward. There is something instructive in that resolve. A great journey is not abandoned simply because it becomes difficult or sorrowful; it is carried through to its proper end, so that when the story is finally told, it is whole. The road back to Surabaya was, in that sense, less about the motorcycle than about honoring a commitment made long before.
Lessons in Flexible Itineraries
If there is a practical takeaway from this leg, it is the value of keeping an itinerary flexible enough to bend without breaking. A rigid plan, locked to non-refundable tickets and fixed dates, would have collapsed under the weight of a family bereavement and a companion’s anxiety. Instead, the trip absorbed each shock: a flight swapped for a bus, a route rerouted through Bukittinggi and Solok, a schedule reshuffled around a funeral and two work commitments. Travelers embarking on long, complex journeys would do well to build in this kind of slack, both financial and temporal, so that the inevitable surprises become manageable detours rather than trip-ending catastrophes.
The Emotional Weight of the Return
Returning to fetch the motorcycle was never going to be a simple errand. Every mile of this stage was colored by the recent loss, by the memory of a brother who had worn the expedition’s jacket and dreamed of joining the ride on his new NMAX. Carrying grief across thousands of kilometers is its own kind of endurance, heavier in many ways than the physical toll of the road. And yet there is a quiet healing in movement, in the enforced patience of a slow bus and the shared silences with a traveling partner. The journey onward to Surabaya was, in the end, both a practical necessity and a way of moving through sorrow toward the completion of something meaningful.
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