Indonesia

July 14

Well. This morning was rather comical. However, at the time, it was not funny at all. Marion had stayed up late partying and drinking with Brett and the rest of the group. To say the least, she was smashed. Festive. Pissed. Drunk off her ass. 

Her alarm went off at 5am. We all had bought our own flights from Singapore to Jakarta because it was not included in the tour. Her flight was leaving at 8:30am, so she needed to be at the airport around 6:30am and leave around 6am. At 5am, her alarm went off for 11 minutes. I was screaming her name, trying to wake her up. I even set another alarm, the hotel one which is a loud sharp beep, in hopes that would wake her up. She opened her eyes and mumbled and closed them again. So I pressed snooze on her alarm. I wanted to change my camera battery out and charge the new one but when I got up to do that I realized that she couldn't figure out how to turn the lights off when she got back and had just taken the key out of the power slot. Nothing had charged. Luckily, I still had 2.5 hours before I needed to leave. 

5:30am rolled around and her alarm went off again. This time I was not only yelling her name, but I was shaking the bed (which was on wheels) to get her up. I also turned on the lights above her bed. We had a conversation about how she needed to be at the airport and get up and leave otherwise she will miss her flight. She said she didn't care and went back to sleep. I didn't really know what to do. At this point I figured she was just so drunk that I wouldn't be able to get her up so I went back to sleep. I wasn't too happy that I had been awake for an hour already trying to get her out of bed when I didn't need to get up until 7:30am. I also tried to wake her at 6 and 6:30. Nothing. When I woke up at 7:30am to catch my flight she actually woke up. 

She was really confused and asked what time we were leaving and I tod get she was 2 hour late and needed to catch her flight. She scrambled out of bed and was really angry I didn't smack her. She threw all her stuff in her bag and stormed out of the room. She had kind of blamed it on me for now waking her up and I was nervous that she was going to be mad. We are roommates for 2 more weeks so that could be rough. Then I felt really bad. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn't my responsibility. Hopefully she'll realize that and it will be fine. I did worry about it all morning though. Hopefully she'll get to Jakarta as well.

I met David and Marie downstairs at 7:45am and we hailed a cab and went to the airport. The cab fair was about $15 Singapore dollars ($5 each). We walked into the airport, checked in and got our boarding pass with Air Asia, and headed to our gate. We were really surprised because we didn't go through security. And then we were bummed because we had already thrown away our water thinking we couldn't take it in the airport. And then we couldn't find water and Marie and David really wanted some. 

We walked to our gate and realized that you go through security when you board the plane before you can get into the seating for the gate. Strange. 

We walked back and I wanted to spend my 3.80 in coins which I ended up getting a muffin from Starbucks which was 3.60. Then, I changed the rest of my Singapore money. It was around $258 Singapore dollars and I ended up with 1.9 million Indonesian rupiah. Crazy. I had a money stack maybe an inch thick full of 100,000 and 50,000 bills. 

Before we went through security to get to sit in the chairs at our gate, I went to the bathroom. Singapore bathrooms are glorious. So clean and nice smelling. They even have sanitizer to put on the toilet seats. And, there was a touch screen on the way out that asked you to rate the bathrooms. Excellent. They are excellent! Had to enjoy that while I lasted. More squat toilets and bum guns to come, I am sure.

The flight was an hour and 40 minutes. And we went back a time zone. So we were in the same time zone as Thailand again. On te flight, I had a whole row to myself. It was nice. Essentially I slept and filled out my customs/immigration forms. It used to take me forever to do those forms, but I am boss at it now. It goes really quickly. But, a few things tripped me up. It asked if you had a sword or knife and I wasn't sure if I should say yes because of my pocket knife and leatherman (I ended up saying no). It also asked if you had unaccompanied baggage. No idea what that is still. But we all (Marie, David, Katie, Jillienne, and I) decided to put that we had 2 accompanied bags.

Once we got off the plane, we had to take a small shuttle bus to the airport. A visa upon arrival was so easy. They just went up to the window and gave them $25 USD and got a little sticker that allowed them 30 days in Indonesia. I paid $46 USD for mine. But, it looks cooler and I am allowed 60 days in Indonesia. So yes, I spent a little more than I needed to and have way more days than I need, but, it looks cool in my passport and it was a pretty interesting experience to get that in Bangkok. So, I'm fine with it. Their visa is only 1/4 of a page and its a sticker that easily peels off. Mine is a full page that doesn't easily peel off. 

I went through customs and that was really easy. However, you can barely see my entry stamp. Honestly, customs officers annoy me. Just stamp my passport so I can see where I've been and don't stamp over other countries or make it super light and faded looking! 

We needed a taxi for 5. We had originally told Rowie we would meet her at the baggage claim, but then we realized she actually flew into a different terminal. So, we waited for a bit and then decided to leave. I thought it would be cheaper to hail a taxi on the street, but I was reading lonely planet and it basically said to use the airport service because it is safer. And to only use Blue Bird cabs. So we just decided to use the taxi service at the airport. We paid 230,000 rupiah which is $23. Between the 5 of us though, it was rather cheap. We did get ripped off a little because Panji said it should be around 170,000, but we were fine with it since we split it so many ways. The 5 of us in one cab was a little tight. David was in the front, the 3 girls were in the middle, and I was in another small seat in the back with all the bags. To get there, I had to climb over the seat. It was fun. David turned around and asked how economy class was. They could also barely fit all our bags in the trunk. They kept trying to jam the trunk closed. Finally, it worked.

We got to the hotel and saw that both Marion and Rowie had already checked in. Thank god. And then we saw Marion. She was really light hearted about what had happened and was laughing and joking around about it that evening. She wasn't mad at me, so that was good. Brett had taught us a phrase in Thai that she kept using. It's "tsong nam naaa" which means "you brought that shit on yourself." 

We were all pretty tired and were definitely wanting to just have a day where we do nothing. There doesn't seem to be too much to do in Jakarta and we still have all day tomorrow.

We decided to be lazy and eat lunch at the hotel and not venture out on the streets. We all had a triple decker sandwich which was pretty good. It was possibly chicken from a can (tasted tuna like) and had egg and veggies on it. It was served with fries. We ended up paying a 20% tax and service charge so total it was 63,000, approximately $6.30. I was shorted about 2,000 in change and I wasn't sure why. That's only 20 cents so I didn't say anything but it is annoying when they just assume you don't care because you're a tourist and it is so little to you. The service wasn't great either. They were too busy chatting and laughing and it took us a while to get anything.

Then I took a nap before our group meeting at 5:30pm. Panji is our new CEO. He is Indonesian and very nice. I think he will be a great guide. He seems organized and he gave us a tour itinerary as well as a page of extra activities in the cities with their prices. There was also a sheet for language stapled in. He briefed us and he learned our names (quickly and well). He then took us for dinner.

It was about a 10 minute walk from the hotel to the restaurant. It was in the dark. You constantly have to watch where you're going so as not to step on cockroaches or in manholes and to navigate around street stands. There was a mosque near the hotel and we could hear them chanting for the evening prayers. While we were having our meeting with Panji he had to stop for a minute because at a certain time every evening they ring a gong type thing which lets those Muslims who are keeping Ramadan know they can eat. It was loud, long and had a very specific beat. Ramadan started July 10. 

Panji is Hindu so he will be eating with us. He said that Ramadan shouldn't affec us too much because Indonesia isn't a Muslim country. He did say that restaurants in the afternoon will put blinds over their windows so people from the street can't see people eating.

The restaurant was surprisingly nice. It was also right near the public pool. I had a dish called Gado-Gado which is a vegetarian dish with vegetables and tofu covered in peanut sauce. It was so good. I will definitely need to get that a few more times. I had ordered a fanta and I didn't know it was strawberry. It tastes like cough syrup. So gross. Luckily, Katie thought it was really nice and traded me her diet coke for the strawberry fanta. At dinner I paid and I got all the correct change.

Forgot about this: Katie and Jillienne forgot to change their Singapore dollars over to Indonesian rupiah at the airport and Panji said that we wouldn't be able to go to a good money changer until tomorrow night for dinner so since I had 1.9 million rupiah I became the sugar momma. We kept a running log of what I have them. 

Tomorrow, Panji is going to show us around Jakarta. Should be interesting!