A Long Day

2:30 a.m.  I was very confused by the noise, which turned out to be my alarm clock – this is often a confusing noise, regardless of the time.  We needed to be at the airport at 4:30 am, and had to do final cleaning at the condo before we left.  Groggily, we shuffled, and swept, and packed, and mopped, and I still had time for a Nescafe cup of coffee before we left – a crucial safety precaution for myself others around me.

Hazel’s aunt dropped us off with hugs and thanks and we headed over to the AirAsia kiosk to check in.  We printed off our boarding passes, but for some reason it wasn’t printing the baggage check, so we went to the counter to finish up.  The woman working there looked at our boarding pass, looked at her computer, looked at our passports, looked at her computer, and then told us that the flight that morning had been cancelled.  So sorry!  We should have received an email a few days ago.  We hadn’t.  “We are here on a 30-day visa.  Today is day 30.  We need to leave.”  She asked us when we flew in.  She was entirely too chipper for 5:00 am, but she seemed quite pleased when she flipped her calculator around to show us that we were in fact on day 29.  I scrunched my forehead.  I knew I counted this dozens of times.  I didn’t necessarily trust my brain on just one cup of Nescafe, but we had planned this part of our trip in my normally-caffeinated state.  I whipped out my trusty manual abacus and started ticking off days on my fingers.  30.  We were at day 30.

“No, no,” Miss Airline replied, “September only has 30 days, so you’re fine!”

Yes, but I had already noted that.  “I know we’re at 30 days today.”

She pulled out a calendar and started tapping off days with an eraser.  Starting on the day after we landed.  She was counting nights, not days.  I was pretty sure their Immigration counted days, starting when we landed.  “We really have to leave today, as we originally booked, or we’ll overstay our visa.”

She clacked away on her machine a bit more.  She asked for our passports again.  “I’m going to check with Immigration for you.  Can you wait?”  We literally didn’t have any other place to be or go, so we nodded and sat down.  Hazel and I were both exhausted.  I may have started singing something.  I think Hazel was more than mildly annoyed at the situation.  Or maybe it was the singing.  I really needed more coffee.

About 45 minutes later, a uniformed officer approached carrying two blue passports.  We must have been the most American looking people at the counter area because he picked us out right away.  “I’m sorry, but your visa is only for 30 days.  If you don’t exit the Philippines today, you’ll be fined for overstaying.”  He handed us our passports and then left.  Ok then!  Now we had that answer.  Back to AirAsia.  It was now close to 6am, we short on sleep, short on coffee, and trying to figure out what to do next.  We informed Miss AirAsia about our visa confirmation and once again reiterated that we needed to leave the Philippines today, per our original booking.  And then smiled.  And waited.

She clacked away.

“I need to speak with my supervisor.  She won’t be in for another two hours.  Can you please wait?”  What else could we do?  So we sat down and waited some more.  I shot a message to our hosts in Indonesia and let them know we wouldn’t be arriving on our scheduled flight and may or may not be arriving that day at all.

About 9:30a.m., the supervisor arrived and after more clacking, conferring, consternation, and consultation, they informed us they had booked us on another flight through Kuala Lumpur that would get us into Jakarta around 9:30pm.  This was much later than our original direct flight, but what could we do?  Thank you very much, please book it.

We arrived in Jakarta and had been instructed to find the shuttles at the far end of the airport.   Exhausted, but feeling close to victory, we dragged ourselves to the edge where we saw people gathered on benches and busses loading up people.  We had been given two bus companies to look for, which had good reputations.  I wasn’t seeing any of them, although their online time table indicated at least one of them should have come and gone by then.  After 20 minutes, we asked someone who looked like they might know something if he could tell us the bus to Bandung.  “Yes, yes, sit here”  Ok, good.  We sat.  And sat.  And sat.  Finally, I noticed the man’s uniform was affiliated with a specific bus company, and not the one we were looking for.  They probably didn’t have the right bus, anyway, as we hadn’t seen any going to our city.

We went back inside to see if we had missed ticket counters.  Indeed we had!  There was a whole row of them, with various companies represented.  I found the one company we had been recommended.  There was no one there.  We waited a few minutes.  Still no one.  The other counters were filled with young people, much more interested in their phones and flirting with each other than trying to get customers.  Finally, we went to the next counter.  They didn’t speak English.  They called their friends over at the next company, who had a few more words, but not enough.  He took us to another friend at a different company who spoke English and had a bus going to our destination.  Plus, they took credit cards.  Thank God, please take my money.  It was still another 30 minutes before our bus arrived, but at least we had a ticket purchased.

I updated our hosts by text that we should be arriving at around 2:30 am.  I felt terrible to inconvenience them, but they were gracious in their response and said they’d meet us at the bus station.  We finally board at about 11:30, almost incoherently tired.  As the bus started rumbling away, the A/C kicked on to arctic temperatures and the road conditions guaranteed sleep would be scarce.  We were so close. I was looking forward to a nice bed.

I checked Google maps to confirm arrival times…and discovered road construction.  Right smack in the middle of our journey.  I regretfully updated our host that our arrival time was bumped to 5:30 am.  They said not a problem.

We finally arrived, bedraggled, exhausted, and glad to have a bed waiting.  Waldemar and Rosemarie Kowalski warmly welcomed us, showed us our rooms, and let us know that a masseuse was coming later in the day, if we were interested.  Oh yes, please! 

Welcome to Indonesia!  It was so nice to finally be there.