When Caleb and I purchased substantial sums worth of money
in paintings, the guy at the front counter said because we spent so much, we’d
now have good Karma. I laughed off the
comedic gesture and went on my way. Now
knowing what’s happened in the last 36 hours, I’m lucky I blew as much as I did….
To get it out of the way nothing regarding our safety
happened so take a sigh of relief (especially you Justin as I know the thought
of unjust harm to me keeps you up at night)
Caleb and I headed to the airport on Wednesday, March 14th. I had checked Lion Air, a common discount
airline in this part of the world, the night before to see what flights we
could catch. According to the site,
there was availability on a 6:00 AM flight but as I’ve discovered with many
airlines, you can’t book online within 48 hours of departure time. We took our chances and had a cab waiting for
us at 4:30 AM in front of our hotel in Bali.
We arrived at the airport and went to the gate. It was 5:20 when I spoke with the agent at
the desk and to our luck, we were able to purchase a ticket to Jogjakarta,
roughly a 15-hour bus ride away (we checked) for $456,000 Rupiah or about $50
US. The flight lasted 45 minutes and
saved nearly a day on what the guidebooks call “buses that will re-arrange your
organs”. Caleb had been the one who had
read about Jogjakarta and had told me about the world’s largest Buddhist
temple, Borobudur. Apparently, it had
been one of the Seven Wonders of the World until some discovery in China back
in the 70’s bumped it off the list.
We arrived in Jogjakarta, exited the plane and walked to the
first tourist counter within 100 steps of the tarmac. We told them we wanted to see Borobudur as
well as another place called Prambanan. The place offered us a private driver and a
new leather and air-conditioned SUV to get us to both locations. After some negotiating we got the deal for a
total of $35 US. I really don’t know how
they can make a profit, even with gas being $1.50 US a gallon. It took the driver a little over an hour to
drive through the countryside to our first stop at Borobudur. Upon entering the compound, we had to each
pay around $12 for an entry fee then opted to have an English speaking guide
take us on the 2 hour tour of the area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur
The compound was believed to be constructed in the 9th century as a shrine to Buddha. It was used for nearly 500 years before being abandoned following the decline of Hinduism and Buddhism in Indonesia as many were converting to Islam. Not until 1814, when the then British ruler of Java (the province Borobudur is in) rediscovered it after hearing about it from locals. The site was completely overgrown with jungle and in terrible condition after 400 years of neglect. A massive 7-year restoration project took place in in 1975 by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) funded in part by the Rockefellers of all people.
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| Everyone had to wear these Sarongs for respect purposes. Thought I looked great! |
Towards the end of the tour, we had a lengthy walk back to
the park exit which gave us a chance to speak with our guide, Mr. Shupa. He had been working as a tour guide since
1986. Normally, he worked 6AM-6PM, 7
days a week to support his family. For
our tour, he’d pocket the equivalent of $6 US.
He asked us where we were from and when we told him Seattle, he asked if
we worked for Boeing or Microsoft, as those were the only two companies that
existed there. We explained what we did,
or rather what we had done, and he asked if we had kids. After we told him I asked how many he
had. He said six, his eldest finishing
her Doctorate in Pharmacy, another one in her second year studying physics at a
university and all the way down to his youngest at just under two years of
age. I asked him if he wanted more to
which he replied, “I sure hope not”. When
we parted ways, Caleb and I gave him twice what he had asked for on the tour
for a tip. He explained everything well
and was a joy to speak with.
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| There are 30 people employed working all year round scraping the moss off the stones by hand! |
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| Some locals wanted a photo with the tall white guy. Caleb insists it's because of my stunning looks.... |
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| Scale model of what the complex originally looked like. Each side of the perimeter nearly a 1/4 mile in length |
We once again hired a private tour guide but this time, I
could understand about half of what he said although the compound was amazing
enough so it didn’t bother us very much.
We finished the tour and returned back to the airport to see if luck
would be in our favor again trying to get to our next place, Jakarta.
Back at the Lion Air counter, I chatted up the agent and
found there was still room on a flight bound for Jakarta leaving in an
hour. I could either A) take a crappy
bus for 9 hours for less than $10 or B) buy the available ticket and take the
40-minute flight for only $35. We chose
the obvious and I still can’t figure out how its feasible, these planes are all
large Boeing jets.
We arrived in Jakarta an hour later and hopped on a free
shuttle to the International Terminal served by Air Asia as we were trying to
press our luck yet again to get to Malaysian Borneo that night. Our luck ran a little short as we discovered
they only flew out every other day after speaking with the agent. Caleb and I headed up to a Starbucks, snagged
the Wi-Fi and started doing research on different airlines that could get us
there. The ones that could were absurdly
priced, and had layovers that would make the 3-hour flight last 20 hours. After a bit more checking, I came up with
another option. There was a flight
leaving the follow afternoon headed for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We eventually wanted to get up in that area
as we planned on spending a solid 5 weeks going through Vietnam, Cambodia,
Laos, and Northern Thailand however we hadn’t thought about it so soon.
We made the call to move Borneo to the last part of the trip
and booked a flight for the following day, Thursday the 15th, for
Vietnam. A quick bit a research on
Hotels.com and Trip Advisor landed us a 4-star hotel about 15 miles away for
less than $90 US. We snagged a cab for
cheap and had him take us to our destination.
When researching about Jakarta, no place we’d read had made it seem like
a place you wanted to stay for very long, even though it’s the largest city in
Indonesia at over 9 million people. It’s
a vast, polluted, dirty, concrete metropolis that Barack Obama once called home
for several years during his youth.
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| View the room at our hotel over Jakarta. |
When we arrived out our hotel and were more than pleased
aside from the unnerving fact that we had to walk through metal detectors at
the entrance and be patted down by security guards. We checked into the room that featured two queen
beds on the 20th floor overlooking the city. It was nice to finally have some elbowroom,
clean floors, and a shower that did more than spit on you. By the time we got settled in, it was almost 9:00
PM local time and we headed down to one of the hotel’s restaurants to have a
nice dinner. We thought about going out
but by the time we finished eating, we both were pretty exhausted and crawled
into bed (separate ones!) around 11:30.
I woke up early Thursday morning and started writing the Bali blog
before enjoying a Skype date to catch up with my good friend Emelie from Lake
Tahoe.
Caleb rolled out of bed around 10 AM and FaceTime’d his
parents to let them know he was still alive.
Our flight left at 4:30 PM so we knew we should probably get a cab
around 2:30 from our hotel. Here’s where
the Karma from the paintings REALLY kicks in.
At around 1:30, I asked Caleb to look up the process for
getting travel Visa’s once we got to Vietnam while I finished my blog. I had heard through multiple sources that
it’s one of the few places where the process can be a real pain in the
ass. After about ten minutes he started
reading out loud from a travel site saying, “You are required to have a travel
visa prior to entering Vietnam”. I
dismissed it thinking, naaah, that can’t be right. He grabbed the number for the Vietnam Embassy
in Jakarta and tried to have the front desk connect us to no avail. He then called our airline, Air Asia, to see
what they knew. The concern in his voice
grew more noticeable as the conversation with the phone agent carried on. He hung up the phone and said “Well, we’re
F*#&@’d!!!” Not only did we need a
travel visa in order to even check in for the flight, it took typically 2-3
business days to get a visa approved!!!
To make the situation EVEN more thrilling, Air Asia had a 48
cancellation policy so the $250 US a piece airline tickets would now be a
complete loss. Fantastic, I love
shoveling away cash!
The time was now 2:00 PM.
We were calculating the worst.
Loss of our flight money, price to book a new flight two days later at a 50% higher rate, staying two more nights at the hotel, this one was going to
sting. Caleb google’d instant visas and
found a plethora of sites claiming they’d do it faster for extra money such as
“Express Visa”, “Quick Turnaround Tourist Visa”, blah blah blah. None could do them faster than 24 hours. Just as the moment arose as I finished
hanging the noose from the closet rod, stool tipping to the side, Caleb shouted
“Super Urgent Visa!!!”
He rattled off the site name and I typed it in. The site looked partially legitimate and
claimed they’d get us cleared for customs in 30 minutes what’d normally take
the embassy 3 days. The price was 20-fold
what it’d normally cost and it was a risk.
We decided to go for it. The time
was now 2:30 and if we were to make it, we needed to leave for the airport in
less than 10 minutes. Caleb grabbed his
bag and made a beeline for the lobby to check out and grab a cab while I input
all our passport info and credit card info to book it. I hit the purchase button and closed the
laptop as the room phone was ringing from the lobby with Caleb yelling that we had to go!
We jumped in the cab and told the guy to go as fast as he
could. I had no idea if it’d work and
prayed that there was an email in my inbox when I got Wi-Fi on my phone at the
airport. We hit traffic, making us even
more crunched for time. This cab wasn’t
pre-negotiated and we only had $156,000 Rupiah left in cash and the cab’s don’t
take visa. Nervously, we watched as we
got closer and the meter inched towards our maximum limit. We pulled in front of the airport at 3:46 PM,
59 minutes before our scheduled flight as the meter stopped at $154,500. Relieved we handed the driver the money and
he said we owed him $170,000 total because of a terminal fee. After a short angered conversation, we left
the guy shortchanged, speeding off out of the airport.
We ran to the agent desk outside, connected to Wi-Fi and
much to my utter amazement, the visa documents were in PDF format in my email
on my phone. I told the gal we needed to print them out and she said
we had to go inside to check in first.
She said we had to hurry because it was now 3:54 and check in closed at 4:00
sharp, 45 minutes before the international flight departed. We ran to the entryway only to have the wind
taken out of sails due to the lengthy line going through security. At this airport there was a security check at
both the entrance to the terminal and the entrance to the departure gate. Caleb and I had no choice but to piss off 100
people and cut to the front of the line while ignoring all the yelling and
calls for blood. We made it inside,
through security with 4 minutes to spare before check-in. An Air Asia agent could see the panicked look
on our faces and came running over to offer his assistance. We told him what was going on and he quickly
ran me to a back office where I could use the computer to print off the
necessary visa documents required for him to check us onto the flight. The internet was incredibly slow and we were
coming down to the deadline. At 3:59 he radioed
to the guy at the ticket counter with Caleb to check us in as he looked at me
and said “You better have that visa or else we’ll get fined $5,000 US per
person by the Vietnamese!” I assured him
we did and he took our word for it (I’ve got his email and am 100% going to
write a letter praising him to the highest executive I can reach, OUTSTANDING
customer service).
We grabbed our boarding passes and sprinted to the terminal
where we still had to clear Indonesian customs since we were exiting the country. The flight left at 4:45 and we were still in
line at 4:40 when a guy yelled “Ho Chi Minh City”. We raised our hands and he took us through
customs and said, “Run!” We sprinted
down several flights of stairs, out onto the tarmac with buses and luggage
carts zipping by, Air Asia employees in the distance waving their hands in the
air next to one of the large jets. We
sprinted up the stairs to the plane just in time to be greeted by the glares of a 150 passengers
as they quickly closed the cabin door behind us!
Sweating, panting, exhausted, we had made it. I’ve been pretty fortunate to have things
always seem to go my way but this time, I thought I was hosed. So here I sit, 6:00 AM Seattle time on
Thursday, March 15th, writing this in disbelief that we actually
pulled it off!
Moral of the story:
Spend money, buy Karma, it works!
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