theworldisgrey

Indonesia: Getting There

I haven’t written much in the past few months. Been busy with work, visa applications, and being a bit sick with a case of tonsillitis. In the next couple weeks, I’ll be writing about my experience in Indonesia, and about the country and culture.

The first part will be about traveling to and from Indonesia, the airlines and airports I went through. I also did some flying on one of the domestic carriers while in the country. It was quite the experience. I hadn’t flown anywhere for the past 5-6 years, and then I flew on a trip that took 30 some hours each way, 8 flights, 5 airports and 3 airlines. The international portion of the trip is covered in this post, I’ll cover the domestic flying later.

The first leg, Minneapolis to San Fransisco was flown with Northwest Airlines (NWA). Not really much to say about them. As an American carrier they charge alot and don’t give you really great service. On the way out, I flew on a Boeing 757 (was the oldest plane I flew on), the way back was an Airbus A320.

I had a 5 hour stopover in San Fransisco, where I had to check in with EVA Air. It was a bit confusing at first, since I didn’t realize that it wasn’t a code share flight. the airport layout is pretty much a big ring with the domestic terminals coming covering 3/4 quarters of the ring, and international terminals coming out as spokes in the other quarter. Wi-Fi Internet access (T-mobile hot-spots) is pretty easy to get, though its not free. Near the international gates, there were booths with power outlets.

The next flight was the longest part. From San Fransisco to Taipei, the flight was 14 hours. Service on EVA Air was decent, even in economy class. Hot meals were served twice during the flight. Generally you had a choice of meals, and the food was OK. Refreshments were provided every couple hours. Though next time I fly that route, I will probably pay for Deluxe Economy to get a little more room. The flight attendants where all female and probably no older than 27, something you probably wont be able to get away with in the US or Europe for that matter. For the most part, they knew English, although it wasn’t always easy to understand. For the trans-Pacific legs of the trip, I flew on Boeing 747s (The biggest planes I flew on as part of the trip).

From there, I had a 3 hour stopover in Taipei. Finding your way around the airport here was pretty easy. All the signs are written in English. Arriving in Taipei was the first time I had seen the sun since I had left Minneapolis. 23 hours earlier, it felt like a really long night. The airport is located quite a ways outside of Taipei, so there are not really any views from the airport itself. Wi-fi Internet access is a little bit more tricky to get, but there are a couple cafe’s in the airport that have free Internet access. Lastly, you can buy some very expensive tea in the airport’s duty free shops.

The last leg of the flight was Taipei to Jakarta. The flight time was about 5 hours long. On this leg, I flew on a Boeing 747 and Airbus A330 (newest plane taken on the trip). As a testament to how much better service EVA provides over NWA, this flight was not much longer than than the MSP-SFO leg and they provided hot meals as well as snacks during the flight.

Finally, 30 hours later I made it to the destination. I had to wait in line to get my Visa on Arrival. Which was very easy to do. Costs $25 for a 30 day visa. Went through immigration which was a couple simple questions and a stamp in my passport. Then picked up my bags and went through customs who really didn’t seem to care what I was carrying. After that, I was out in the main terminal where I met Vita and her brothers who came to pick me up.

A few final notes, security at the airports varied widely in each country. The US has the most stringent requirement, including having extra security at airports with flights to the US (They had an extra security check at the Taipei airport for flights going to the US). Indonesia was the most lax, and most likely you could pay off someone to just let you take whatever you wanted through. Taiwanese airport security was somewhat in between, you only had to take your shoes off if they contained metal in them and generally you didn’t have to take a laptop out of your bag if you had one with you, unlike the US.

Hopefully I’ll finish the rest of the posts in the next few weeks. I’ll cover Jakarta, traveling domesitcally, Yogyakarta, and Bali. Photos from the trip are in the photos section of the site, as well as on my Flickr account.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 17th, 2007 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Life, Photos, Travel, Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.