Here I am the next morning, still in the Bali airport hotel. We checked in yesterday where we learned that the flight had been rescheduled from 1330 to 1530. 1530 rolled by and there was no sign of an aeroplane at the gate. At 1630 an aeroplane arrived and at 1730 we boarded. We sat for a while, an announcement came in Bahasa and all the other passengers grabbed their bags and left. We enquired and were told that it was now raining in Tambolaka and Bali’s air traffic control would not let the plane take off. Another more experienced passenger told us that she had called home and it was not raining in Tambolaka, but the airport closed for the day at five.
Meanwhile one unfortunate Nam Air staff member had been pushed forward to deal with the annoyed passengers. There was an almost ritualistic feel to it all. The passengers stood in a circle around him. One man would step forward and scream into his face and at the universe. Those around would murmur or shout agreement. Then another man would step forward to calm down the shouting passenger and draw him back to the edge of the circle.
I found it particularly difficult to be with GF and his mother as I found myself trapped with the Indonesians in the same shame that we Third Worlders feel when things go wrong in a way that they wouldn’t in the First World. Despair and anger at being useless and on edge that the white people would say something cruel or express contempt. And of course no matter how soft spoken Westerners are, they are bigger and take up more space in the world so it is hard to not feel attacked.
I rushed the GF’S mother back to the hotel and got her a room. Then the GF arrived having liberated our luggage. We were all tired after a day of sitting in the airport and only a bun since breakfast, and the GF particularly was shattered that his mother had to experience this on a trip he had arranged. So not unlike us Third Worlders I suppose. I searched online for a place for dinner, found one about 20 minutes away in Kota. It is always hard to find decent advice for food in these tourist places but it was all right though expensive and horrific traffic meant that the drive took an hour and the uber driver on our return took another 40 minutes to arrive while I stood on the road in the rain, squinting into headlights.
Anyway we got back to the dear old airport hotel, collapsed into bed and here we are. May today’s travel have more actual displacement from the starting point. If I post no more for several days, the journey was successful (or I’m dead, I suppose).