Indonesia- The way Home

Woke up again at bloody 4am due to Mosque "music". Cursed...alot, then spent the wee hours of the morning walking around town prior to the big trip back to the US. First though was 8 hours in Denpasar/Kuta. We boarded the plane in Flores and landed in Denpasar. I paid to guard my luggage and headed into Kuta one last time. We trespassed into the fancy resort to swim in "our pool" one last time, did some last minute shopping, and whispered sweet nothings to each other. You know, normal guy stuff. I crammed in as much $2 dinners as I could at the usual dive, and hit the international gates for my departure. Adam didnt depart until the following night. The flight to Tokyo was flawless. Full empty row, decent movie, and all the sake I could throw down. It wasnt until the end of that 8 hour flight that I started to feel funny. The throat was now proper swollen,alcohol started tasting really bitter, and snot flowed freely. I ate the last of my to-go Indonesian food and wasted 4 hours of life hoping to feel better in the Tokyo airport. I knew it wouldnt be my finest 14 hours of life as soon as I boarded the flight to JFK. About 2 hours later I was in cofession in the Airline toilets. About 5-6 hours, on and off, and after a complete refund of all foods and liquids and had consumed that day, I officially decided I was unhappy. It was not the finest flight, nor my finest hour. After 14 hours of hoping for death to come, we landed in JFK. Ah , sweet NY. Never has the bitter spitful hatred for custom person's fellow American felt more like home. It didnt help much that I pointed out to them the yellow sign of pledges below their desk, that they were failing the 1st pledge being helpful and having the utmost respect and courtesey for arriving passengers. There are fewer places in this world more devoid of humor than a US custom agent. After a short flight back to boston, and sporting my Sarong (or which all Americans call "are you wearing a dress?") I was back to the land of slaughtered english, bad manners, and worse driving. Sigh, home sweet home. Little did I know Adam had his own fun traveling back home.

The story of Adam-

Adam had thought he had learned how much it would cost to get back to the US by ebbing knowledge from his mentor/savior/role model, our story's hero, The big UB, aka "Hot Ben". With 150,000 Rupiah in hand Adam headed through the exit only to be detoured at customs for surplassing his Visa limits. I guess he had planned on a 30 day trip for his 30 day visit, to which the agents at the airport claimed was counted as when you started your flight to the country, not when you arrived physically to Indonesia. Because of that, Adam's 30 day trip was actually 31 days according to Indonesian Logic. Brought to the interagation room, Adam braved their onslaught of questions such as" you owe us 200K Rupiah." Once told that he did not have their money the ingenious Indonesians tried other means of procurment, such as "ask another Whitey in the airport to give you it" (really they did ask Adam to do this), and "Do you have an Ipod?" While this may seem like blatant corruption to us in America, remember the cultural differences. In indonesia, Ipods are a currency. For example, the exit fee to leave the country is,....I guess....one Ipod. So our hero's obediant servant and traveling companion Adam did what he did best, holler up something powerful, swear loudly, and ask for to speak to his embassy. And it worked, rather than explain to Diplomats the unspoken secret that all whiteys give each other money to other random whiteys in the airport (secret white person bonds), or that the Ipod was now replacing the Rupiah as the national currency, the boss of the customs folk let him off, as long "as he remembers not to exceed the VISA next time."

Moral of the story, yelling " I american, I do what I want!" in every situation may be loud and abnoxious, but it really works.