‘Only those who will risk going too far
can possibly find out how far one can go.’
T. S. Eliot
Jumping into action, Khaled contacted a syndicate that ran boats directly to Christmas Island from a beach just a few hours’ drive from Jakarta. ‘The good thing about this is if you don’t like the look of the boat or think it’s not seaworthy, you still have the option of turning back,’ he said. They were words of needed comfort.
In Rangoon, Shahed frantically called friends and family and managed to raise around US$1000 for the price of passage to Australia, a huge sum for them. My cousin, Suu Myatt, was as always a big source of help.
After paying the fees to the people smugglers, I had a few dollars left over. The day before we were due to leave, I went shopping for things essential for the trip: a large container for water, the inner tube of a truck tyre, and a hand-held inflater to fill it with air. Stuffing my DIY survival kit into a backpack with my Nokia phone, I told myself I was ready to face the ocean once again.
Although Khaled assured me things would run smoother this time, I still didn’t trust the new syndicate we were dealing with. I didn’t even fully expect to make it to Australia. At best I thought we had a 50/50 chance of sinking – hence the inner tube. I’d learned the hard way not to place my existence entirely in the hands of others.
Even after years of staring down risk, this latest adventure, coming so soon after one that had nearly taken my life, seemed particularly insane. ‘Why are you doing this again?’ I asked myself. ‘After everything that happened before, why?’
In the end I concluded that if there had been the slightest chance of a life worth living in Jakarta, I would have stayed. But there wasn’t. Shamsul knew it too and had considered coming with us, but decided to wait for his girlfriend to arrive from Burma. Later on he would consider that decision to be a win.
The night we left, the moon was barely visible, a fingernail clipping in the starless sky. By midnight, we had arrived at the rendezvous site, a parking lot next to a low-rise building on the outskirts of Jakarta. There were two trucks and dozens of fellow refugees waiting. As we boarded the transport, I was placed in a different truck from Khaled and his family. We were crammed in like livestock and covered with tarpaulins.
The darkness that night was unusually dense and oppressive, as were conditions in the back of the truck. You couldn’t fit a needle between us. Just a few minutes under the tarps and the fifty or so mouths had sucked most of the oxygen out of the air. Taking a breath was like trying to inhale through a pinched straw. As the hours went by, the stink of stale air and human sweat was soured further by the reek of children who had pissed and shit themselves.
Whenever the truck stopped, communal panic swept the human cargo, a terror that the police had intercepted us. At one such stop I heard shouting before the truck was violently thrown into reverse. It spun around and the feeling of acceleration suggested we were headed back in the direction we’d just come from.
Later we discovered it was a police intercept, and the lead truck had been captured. Khaled and his family – on their last quest for freedom – were taken into custody. They spent the next six years in a state of limbo in Indonesia, until eventually being resettled in the Netherlands in 2019. My own fate was decided simply by virtue of being in a different truck.
As the sun rose, we rolled to a halt and the engine stopped. When the tailgate was opened we spilled out into a jungle clearing dotted with stands of tall coconut trees. There were no signs of civilisation. I felt very exposed. I’d heard credible stories about smugglers taking money before dropping their charges in the middle of nowhere and driving away. In another version, smugglers stopping halfway to the rendezvous point with a boat and extorting more funds from passengers to take them the rest of the way.
As we milled around the truck, I was amazed to come across the younger brother of a friend of mine from Maungdaw, who had come on another of the vehicles that had made it past the police.
He told me he was the only member of his family of seven to survive an attack on his neighbourhood. He didn’t go into detail, only that some of them tried to escape but never made it out of the river they’d been forced to flee into. Only later, when I was able to view videos and reports on the genocide on the news and social media, was I able to get a glimpse into the sort of atrocities he must have survived.
As I listened to his dreadful story, my thoughts turned to the likelihood that we were about to be double-crossed by the syndicate. I decided to look around to get a sense of our location. The scent of salt in the air was a clue. It wasn’t long before a glimpse of white beyond the edge of the jungle revealed we had stopped next to a beach.
It happened to be a glorious morning: the sun was bright and the sky a flawless, robin’s-egg blue. When I pushed through the under-growth I saw a large wooden boat in the bay, pulling against its anchor like a sea monster. A handful of canoes, skippered by boys no older than twelve, began ferrying people out to the boat.
As people rushed into the knee-deep water to climb into the canoes, I took my time, collecting my thoughts and savouring the feeling of the sand against my feet. Solid land was precious, and to be appreciated. I had left it behind before, and there was no saying how long I would have to wait before touching it again.
Slowly, and with a growing sense that I was making a lasting mistake, I boarded the canoe that ferried us to the boat. Others were giving cash tips to the young men for the short ride. Since I had no money, I unbuckled the watch my dad had given me and handed it to the smiling pre-adolescent ferryman.
We pulled up alongside the fishing boat. I was one of the last to get onboard. With its wood trim, painted turquoise and a rusty orange, the boat was in finer condition and better supplied than our sad fishing vessel, no doubt by now smashed into little pieces on the reefs around Binongko Island.
On this one, there were bottles of water and those ubiquitous packets of Indonesian instant noodles, in case we ever got stranded again. And space! While we were packed on the deck like fish in a net, we had just enough room to spread our legs. A tarp, spread across our seated bodies, provided cover from the splashing water and the roaring wind. A well-prepared group of men, hailing from Pakistan, had thought to bring a collection of orange life jackets, and used them as an extra layer of protection.
Keeping my survival kit close to me this time, rather than placing it below deck, I found an open space next to the wheelhouse and sat there. As before, my shipmates appeared to come from many different nations. There were children, families, women with babies, and an ancient-looking man from the Middle East. I was worried about the young guy from Maungdaw, now out of sight. My fears chased each other in a spinning wheel until I lost track of them and fell asleep.
When I awoke the next morning there was no land to speak of – just flat horizon in all directions. Having done my research this time, I knew we were heading south on the Indian Ocean. That second day at sea was fairly uneventful, save for the fact we saw the sun fully rise and fall again on the same wide horizon.
The crew only spoke Bahasa so I wasn’t privy to their discussions. Once again, it seemed the skipper was navigating with nothing but the stars and a compass. Before we set out I’d calculated that if we were to go at the regular speed of an Indonesian fishing boat, we should reach Christmas Island in two days.
I was kept awake on the second night by the anticipation of seeing the lights of a new civilisation at any moment. Instead we sailed towards the dawn in darkness, apart from the still-thin moon and the dusty spangle of the Milky Way.
We should have seen Christmas Island by now, and I was not the only one to notice. A debate sprang up among the passengers, some of whom questioned whether we’d gotten lost. Others believed we were on course.
‘Listen to me, these are good conditions,’ said an older man. ‘The sky is clear and the stars are visible. We’re right on track. It’s possible we’re being slowed down by a strong current.’
The ocean sparkled in the darkness. At first I thought it was the reflection of stars until I realised the waters around us were lit up like a galaxy by the bioluminescence of tiny marine organisms. There were multitudes of them, just under the surface, as unknown to us as we were to them. Awesome to behold, but spooky too.
On day three I got sick. The guy sitting next to me gave me half a granola energy bar. Another passenger shared his dates. Out there, the swells grew larger, and more persistent. As the sea slapped hard against the hull, plumes of salt spray showered our burnt faces.
A pod of dolphins appeared near the boat, an inquisitive escort. The visit relieved some of the tension among the passengers, but the distraction was short lived. As people dashed to the port to enjoy the spectacle, the boat sloped to one side. The Indonesian crew shouted at everyone to return to their spots, or else we might capsize.
As a pink dusk lit up the third evening of our lonely voyage, I became intrigued by a group of young men and women standing in the stern, smoking cigarettes and chatting. They looked oddly relaxed, like they’d gathered for a casual catch-up at their favourite café. The sight of them was encouraging, and I felt a strong urge to join their circle, just to feel normal for a moment. I had been away from pretty much everyone I knew for months, and hadn’t seen my family in years.
The smokers spoke in a foreign language, which seemed oddly fitting here in the alien landscape of the ocean, with its dolphins and glowing creatures. I felt a sense of kinship, without necessarily knowing how to share my thoughts with them. In the scenario that was playing out in my mind, they were my peers, or would be soon.
Gathering my courage, I readied myself to ask if anyone knew English – but when I stood up, the days of sunshine and saltwater took their toll. Feeling dizzy, I tilted sideways and lay still. Content to watch them from a distance, I imagined what new friends I might make in Australia, where my dreams of a brighter future were starting to migrate. Things would be better there.
A civilised country, with good people. What could go wrong?