The congestion did not spoil the festive mood for Endang, her husband and their two children. She said the congestion was worth the mudik (exodus) trip in order to reunite with her extended family, many of whom she has not seen in two years.

“Traffic jams are part of the mudik tradition. My family just made the most out of it, and I remembered to pack a lot of snacks for the road,” she told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Endang was among the 85 million Indonesians — according to government expectation — who crowded the country’s motorways over the past weekend.

Indonesians celebrated Idul Fitri with a return to traditional, in-person festivities after two years of muted celebrations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The country’s encouraging pandemic indicators and a higher vaccination rate prompted President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to announce in late March that the government would lift Idul Fitri restrictions previously enacted in 2020 and 2021.

This included allowing mudik, so long as travelers have had their booster shot or could present a negative COVID-19 test during their trip.

Endang said she had been ecstatic to hear about the lifting of curbs and immediately made travel arrangements to drive home.

Authorities enacted a number of traffic management policies, which included odd-even, one-way and contraflow traffic systems, during the holiday. But major gridlock, particularly on the trans-Java toll road, persisted.

Amrin Abadi, 25, joined a motorcycle convoy with his three brothers for a one-and-a-half-day ride to reach his hometown of Yogyakarta.

“In previous years, it would only take me 12 hours to reach Yogyakarta. There was a lot of traffic this year, but I did not mind it, as I could finally celebrate Idul Fitri with all of my family back home,” Amrin told the Post.

Amrin, who also lives in South Tangerang, said he had been looking forward to gathering with his parents and extended family – an Idul Fitri tradition known as halal-bihalal.

“I really missed having the gatherings and eating my mom’s homemade ketupat [rice cooked in diamond-shaped parcels] while chatting with my family and friends,” Amrin said.

While millions of Indonesians elected to head out of Jakarta, Idul Fitri celebrations in the capital were also equally festive. 

Amadea Aditya, 26, also from South Jakarta, was happy to finally be able to perform nyekar (grave visits) with her family at South Jakarta’s Kalibata Heroes Cemetery on Monday.

“This is what I felt was the most different [this year]: to be able to visit my grandfather’s grave at the Kalibata Heroes Cemetery. In the past two years, we just stayed at home during Idul Fitri,” Amadea said on Monday.

Monday also saw hundreds of thousands of people crowding Grand Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta and the newly built Jakarta International Stadium in North Jakarta, as well as local neighborhood mosques for Idul Fitri prayers.

Annisa Harsa, 26, from South Jakarta, said she was excited to finally be able to take part in Idul Fitri prayers at her local mosque, particularly as the past two years had forced her and her family to do them at home.

Annisa and her family also felt a sense of relief to finally hold in-person gatherings with relatives instead of an online halal-bihalal.

“[Online gatherings] were not that exciting, and it was difficult to coordinate [the schedules] of a lot of people,” Annisa said. “It’s nice to finally see relatives I haven’t seen in two years."

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