Bangkok to Sorong: the trip to Indonesia

My second epic dive trip of the year is about to start. The only two things that lay between me and my diving paradise are a series of flights and a boat ride. My destination: Raja Ampat.

Well, technically my mom was the one that chose the spot. I’m just tagging along as her diving partner. Raja Ampat is a group of islands off the coast of Sorong in West Papua New Guinea.

Man, I’ve only learned Southeast Asian geography in my high school’s World Civilization class. Never thought I’d actually get to visit them.

Here's a progression of enlarged maps on where we are going:

Southeast Asia

West Papua

That's where we're going!

So my journey began on Saturday afternoon where I flew from Bangkok to Jakarta flying Garuda Air. Before getting on the plane I contemplated at the boutique shop whether I should buy a book or not. Most of the time when I buy an airport book, I never end up actually reading it. I almost always end up watching movies or listening to my iPod on the plane.

However, I knew that this time there probably won’t be any movies and a lot of waiting between flights. Therefore, I decided to buy a book. It was a choice between Amy Tan’s Saving Fish from Drowning and Suzanne Collins’ Catching Fire. I didn’t want a heavy reading for the airport especially because I get distracted easily. Naturally, I chose Catching Fire.

And let me tell you, that was a total lifesaving decision! More on this later.

The flight was fine. Nothing special. Except for the fact that the flight attendants keep on thinking that we’re Indonesian and spoke to us in their language. Towards the end of the flight, the male attendant only gave us the customs declaration card and not the immigration card. We thought that maybe we don’t need it because we were sure the flight attendant knew by then that we were not Indonesian.

Getting off the plane, we went straight to get our visa on arrival. Upon giving the officer the customs declaration and our passports, he asked if we had the immigration forms. We said no. He asked, no? My mom told him that the flight attendant didn’t give the forms to us, and that it was our first time here (so we didn’t know if they do things different, but we didn’t get to say this part because he interrupted us). He asked, might I add, annoyingly and disrespectfully like we’re idiots, “You didn’t ask? Why you didn’t ask?” It’s not the question, but the way that he says it.

How effing rude!

Okay, so we probably should have asked to be sure, but that gives him no right to talk to us in that way! No wonder people don’t really mention Indonesia in their list of places for vacation. They’re just plain unfriendly people.

The officer then directed us, in a careless way, to the transfer counter to fill out the form. The young man that was there gave me the forms, but he could barely speak English. Not gonna lie, my mom had someone come in from the family company’s branch in Indonesia and escort us through the airport. He’s this older guy with a beer belly and dressed casually in a Hawaiian shirt with a man purse. He found us right after the immigration officer episode and took us through quite seamlessly.

However, even with this man who is supposed to be the one to take care of guests of the company’s, I got a really weird feeling about him. Like something’s off about his manners. He’s a really nice man, doesn’t really speak much English either, but his manners in doing things…I don’t know, I can’t really put it in better words than hard and somewhat impolite.

At first, I thought maybe I was just being judgmental and groggy because of being away from home and loved ones, but I quickly came to realize that whatever I speculated was far from wrong. While lining up to get out of the declaration area to change terminals, the guy behind me kept pushing his trolley into my calves. I get it, you want to go faster, but pushing me from behind ain’t gonna make that happen. So I pushed back the next time he pushed forward in case he didn’t realize that he was hitting me. He realized and kept pushing at me without even saying sorry.

What, the, heck.

Not to mention that it wasn’t even really a line. It was more like a crowd because people kept cutting and pushing in at every gap they could find. They are just rude and have absolutely no manners! There are two more incidents on the domestic flight, but I’ll talk about them later.

We finally got out and were driven to another terminal for domestic flights. It was going to be a flight from Jakarta to Makassar and then another flight to Sorong, both with Sriwijaya Air. When we got to the domestic terminal, I joked to my mom about how their air conditioner must have broken, because it was hot (back in Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok the a/c distribution was so horrible it couldn't distinguish the heat). But once we stepped up to their second floor to go to the gates I was really surprised by what I saw.

It was the first open air airport I’ve ever seen!

At least parts of it were open air because we later found out that the gates were an enclosed area with air conditioning.

Before going to the gates we decided to grab something to drink from this one little food shop. Man! Do Indonesians smoke! They were literally smoking in the food shop. Where people are eating. Going in I could see the smoky air wafting around because of horrible ventilation. This instantly brought back memories of China where people also smoke everywhere, including in restaurants. But it just somehow seems worse here because nothing looks clean. The floor was full of cigarette butts and trash, and plates were left on tables. Apparently the workers were just chillaxing because they were sitting in the back looking through their phone and singing without thinking of cleaning up the place.

I was just so disgusted I told my mom I wanted to go and wait at the gate in the heat (this was before I figured out the gates had a/c in them). And if you know me, you know I’m not easily disgusted, being born and raised in Bangkok on a constant diet of street food and such.

Even among the corridors with big, hanging signs that says “no smoking” with pictures of a crossed out cigarette, people were still smoking. I was just amazed. Do they not know what cancer is? How they would probably cough up blood and die, drowned by their own blood?

Going in to the waiting area by the gate was a welcomed change. The room was air conditioned, and there were lots of seats. I sat and read Catching Fire. Remember how I said the book was a lifesaver? We had five hours to spare. I read at least 160 pages then. I was afraid of actually finishing the book on the spot; I could have, but didn’t. At some point I was just too tired of reading and joined my mom in dozing off and spacing out. After a while we both started to get cold (I was wearing shorts—we were going to a hot country after all).

I started to get worried about missing the flight because the display board was not showing the same information as our boarding pass. Finally, I went to ask someone that worked at a counter. He told me to follow my boarding pass and that the board was wrong. Okay…I mean, if it’s wrong then why don’t you change it so passengers aren't confused? That’s just being lazy right there.

After a (long) while we got on the plane and settled into our seats. Thankfully I didn't have anyone sitting beside me on my right (my mom was on my left). After takeoff my mom wanted a blanket because they were blasting imported air from the North Pole. We both didn’t bring any sweater because who needs it in a tropical country by the equator? Seriously!

So I called over a flight attendant that was walking by and asked for a blanket. She said just a moment and disappeared. I assumed she was going to get the blanket. Guess what she said when she came back empty handed with a smile? “I’m sorry. Blankets are for business class passengers only.”

I was just shocked. Shocked!

For business class passengers only? I get it, they pay more so they get better seats, better food, and better service. But a blanket not available for the economy class while you blast friggin’ air from Everest on us? And I know they have blankets to spare. That’s just cruel. People could actually get sick from how cold it was. It felt like 58 degrees Fahrenheit. Not a good temperature for people living in a 75 degrees climate.

I was literally shivering and shaking the whole trip. I had to use the plane safety pamphlet to cover up my legs because cold air was blowing on it.

It was the most uncomfortable plane ride of my life.

Then, after the plane landed and people were allowed to take down their baggage, I took down my mom’s small luggage and placed it in the aisle. The aisle was so small that the luggage fitted the space with little room left to squeeze by. While we wait for the crew to open the door, a man from a row behind us quickly scooted up and juggled past my mom’s luggage to get ahead as much as possible. No “excuse me” or “sorry” or even a glance. Come on, really?

It’s like an unspoken rule and courteous for people to let others in front of them go first. Here, they just don’t seem to have much respect for others.

Getting off the plane we decided to go to the bathroom before going to the gate for our next flight. Coming out of the bathroom stall, I saw that there was a young woman washing her hands in the sink. When she saw me she gave me an apologetic smile like saying, “I’ll be done in a second.” I smiled back and realized that this was the first time since I got to Indonesia that I received a genuine smile. When my mom came out of her stall I said something to her in Thai, and the woman instantly asked us in Thai if we were Thai.

Whoops! No wonder she smiled. And there I was thinking I finally found a decent person. Bummer!

We later found out that the Thai lady was going to dive in Misool with her white boyfriend, who actually helped me put my mom’s luggage in the overhead compartment on the previous flight. It takes longer to get to Misool by boat once we land in Sorong, so that is why my mom chose Raja Ampat instead. It’s supposed to be very beautiful at Misool, but the trip is just too exhausting (4-5 hours by boat, while Raja Ampat is only around 1.5 hours).

When we went on the plane to go to Sorong they didn’t blast the air conditioning like last flight. So it was bearable, and I slept the whole time because I was dead tired. I slept until the plane touched down again.

Sorong probably has the smallest airport I’ve ever seen. Just one room, literally, for collecting baggage and everything else. One of the guys working for the resort picked us up and took us to the port to wait for the boat. Their port really just looked like a graveyard for ships. Barely resembled a port or a pier.

Waiting by this big, rusty boat.

I mean, does it even still work? Looks like it's falling apart...

There's our little "speed boat" to take us to the resort,
which skillfully maneuvered its way into that small space.
Like parallel parking, but harder because it's in the water.

The “speed boat” that picked us up was basically a long and narrow boat with engine. Pretty cool. Most of the passengers were heading for Kri Eco Resort, which is just on the other side of the island from where we were going, which is called Sorido Bay Resort.

Once we got there, let me tell you, it was spectacular!