Oh hey, from Indo! We’ve officially been on vacation for 48 hours, following 33 hours of: three planes, eight hours of layovers, one car ride, one boat ride, four solid movie cries on two of the three flights, six hours of sleep, and one actual meal. While a glorious first class leg helped the overall journey, it was still someone of a gut punch. On the first layover in Japan, we evaluated the amenities at both the United Club and the ANA Star Alliance club, and we agree that while the mere presence of windows makes the view better at the United Club, ANA’s beer tipping stations, serve-yourself liquor station (didn’t use it just noted it) and appetizer buffet make it the superior lounge. Because of a momentary brain spasm, I gave up my window seat on the eight hour flight from Narita to Jakarta to sit next to Kevin in the middle seat, and I will never ever do that again. Drooling on your Stranger-Neighbor and waking up with a completely sweaty face and panic-inducing nausea because you’re claustrophobic and can’t breathe or move is not worth being able to hold your boyfriend’s hand for 5 seconds before you take off and be all like “aw, isn’t it so nice that we get to sit together!? I love you!!” Just want to tell you so that I can save you the same mistake. Narita-Jakarta layover was rough and zombie-ish although customs was a GD breeze – every customs line should be like the Jakarta airport’s and the world would be a less grumpy place. However, if anyone is planning on transferring through Jakarta on a 5AM flight soon, please note that 5 AM at Jakarta CGK is like 5 PM on a Thursday at DIA or JFK. It was insanity and there were way more small children than should ever be up at 3AM. Even though we had a two hour head start, we would have missed our flight due to multiple 40 person-deep baggage check lines and about 2 people actually working, except at the Jakarta airport they just shout out things like “WHO IS ON THAT FLIGHT TO LOMBOK THAT’S ABOUT TO LEAVE IN 20 MINUTES!” (I think that’s what they said but of course i forgot to learn Indonesian travel phrases before our trip) and then the people in charge just instruct you to cut in front of everyone else and no one that you cut even cares. Bedlam, but bizarrely just as efficient as a stateside airport (or maybe more so) in terms of getting everyone on the flight they need to be on. The two hour ride through Lombok with our very kind driver was actually quite enjoyable after a full day’s worth of plane-sitting, and we got to retrace by car the entire route that we saw from our last flight in the opposite direction. There are mosques about every half mile in Lombok. From the sky they look like tiny little fairy castles , all jade green six-spire roofs and giant moon blue circles and then you realize once you’re on the ground that they look every bit as much like the fairy castles you saw from the sky, only bigger. Besides a lot of mosques, you see a whole lot of people riding on the tops of trucks, and there are scooters. Everywhere. I sincerely don’t know how we didn’t hit at least three of them on our way up the coastal highway that features a crisp 50-foot drop to a beautiful coastal death if you go just an inch too far over the shoulder, but everyone seemed to live somehow. Kevin says it’s way crazier in India and China, so I’ll chalk up my stress to being a scooter navigating novice.
We’re now relaxing on the beach at our beautiful little hotel on our Robinson Crusoe island that you can ride your beach cruiser around in just under 30 minutes. More on the beginning of our Indo Adventures in Gili Meno soon – now it’s time for more 20 oz Bingtang beers! I rank Bingtang just above Belize’s Belliken due to the larger bottle size and better consequent value, generously above Puerto Rico’s Medellin beer, and just below Croatia’s Karlovacko which is still my favorite non-western-European local beer.