Street Beat 

Few tourists make the journey to remote Gorontalo, one of the country’s youngest provinces and famed for its staunchly Islamic culture. Those who do will find a unique hybrid vehicle prowling the streets of the capital. Aubrey Belford went along for the ride.

By the standards of an Indonesian provincial capital, Gorontalo City on Sulawesi’s northern arm is freakishly tidy. The city’s streets are wide and clean, and clear out for the afternoon siesta, a result of Gorontalo’s Spanish cultural influence. Dutch colonial houses ring the city center. Families stroll and watch dangdut performances at the central  market. The wholesomeness is almost overwhelming.

If there’s anywhere this idyll can appear to unravel, it’s on Saturday night at the city’s harbor. All along the hillside road, jumbled shacks hang toward the water, offering cheap beer, karaoke and other more illicit pleasures. Along the sea wall, hundreds of young Gorontalese dance to techno music blasted out of overworked speakers, sneaking whatever licit or illicit substance will aid in the fun.

But Gorontalo’s quaintness is unshakable. At the center of this hedonistic scene, the source of the music is nothing but a collection of top-heavy wheeled contraptions – somewhere between comical and cute – a lucky few of which have been decked out with neon lights and oversized sound systems.

They are the city’s bentor, short for becak motor, a recent invention that has become the new province’s pride and most ubiquitous and characteristic symbol.

Combining a front-mounted cushioned bench seat and sealable cabin with a motorbike, Gorontalo’s preferred means of public transportation reflects the province’s low-key ethos.

After all, according to one driver, Udin, the whole party scene collapses once the old folk get tired of it. Once an elder complains that things are getting out of hand, everyone goes home.

Bentor have made their mark on the humble local economy. Small workshops dot the side of the road along Jl. Agus Salim near the city center. Customers supply the bike, usually a low-end, low-horsepower model, and the workshop attaches the frame, welding bits of frame together with makeshift protective equipment.

Bentor now traverse the length of the province, even driving on the highways between cities. They are even making their way as an export to the neighboring province of North Sulawesi, but not to the streets of the provincial capital Manado.

A middle-range bentor costs around Rp 2.5 million, on top of the cost of the bike itself. But the investment pays off.

According to Udin, around 60 percent of the drivers in town own their own bentor. Udin, who works seven days a week and eschews the siesta, earns about Rp 1 million a month, around twice the local minimum wage – and more than three times what he earned working in a supermarket.

Amat, Udin’s neighbor and another bentor driver, takes a more relaxed approach. When we visit him at his house on a Sunday afternoon, he is deep into his siesta.

Udin explains: “For me now, I have to work hard, because I have to give money to the owner of my motorbike every day. If I take a siesta, I lose time.”

The bentor have changed the landscape of the town. Just a few years ago, bemo minivans and horse carriages were the main public transportation. The bentor proved to be so popular that it all but wiped out the other two forms of transport, despite being slightly more expensive. The result is that Gorontalo City exudes an aura of quirky efficiency.

In a city with no cinemas, and precious few other night-time distractions, bentor are a major weapon against boredom.

One driver at the harbor, Iwan Hendrik, borrowed his uncle’s bentor to hang out by the seawall. For him, and most of the others, it’s not all about making a living.

As Iwan tells me on the way home, when most drivers leave the harbor in the early hours of the morning – some perhaps more than a little intoxicated – they go home empty-handed.

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