千里之行 始于足下

Big Durian Excursion [12 - 14 Dec 2010]
Prologue
Pt I: Braving Lion Air
Pt II: It’s a Rich Man’s World
Pt III: Macet
Pt IV: Congkak & Pins
Pt V: Shitty Business
Pt VI: The Ride Home
Epilogue

JAKARTA

Likes: Friends, friendly people, great food

Dislikes: TRAFFIC JAMS, rich-poor gap, lack of pavements

Jakarta is not the usual travel destination.

Besides the malls, our Indonesian friends were perplexed about where to take us to.

Even the malls weren’t much different from Singapore’s (or anywhere else in the world).

However it was nice to reconnect with friends whom I haven’t seen for years and see an entire new perspective of Jakarta through their eyes.

While it isn’t what I’ll normally do, it’s still nice to look at huge mansions while riding in nice SUVs as well as  hanging out with the hip crowd at Social House.

I will really like to thank them for their hospitality.

Oh yeah the food is really good as well.

I hadn’t had a bad meal in Jakarta.

Not even on the streets.

Maybe with the exception of CFC.

However I do share one pet peeve about Jakarta like everyone else.

The traffic.

Someone please do something about it.

Seriously.

Or else no one’s going anywhere anymore.

While we didn’t have buffet at JW Marriott or visited Old Jakarta, it was still a good trip.

Perhaps there will be a next visit albeit a short stopover en-route to Bandung, Bali or wherever.

LION AIR

Being on the list of banned air carriers banned in the European Union doesn’t inspire our confidence in Lion Air.

The bumpy return flight made us wish that we weren’t flying them.

Other than that we couldn’t complain much since it got us from point A to B and back at such low prices.

In addition it threw in 20kg of checked baggage for free while most other LCCs make the customers pay for them.

Seat pitch was a little tight but thankfully the journey wasn’t too long.

Its buy-on-board products are reasonably-priced but choice seemed limited with only drinks and snacks.

Lion Air can do more to generate additional revenue through offering more buy-on-board choices (Hot food? Merchandise?).

The air crew were alright although they weren’t the friendliest Indonesians we’ve met.

The online booking process was also simple and easy enough.

Will I fly them again?

Doubt so.

Unless its price is much lower than the competitors’.

Or there are no other alternatives.

Though I may change my mind if they get off that EU list.

Big Durian Excursion [12 - 14 Dec 2010]
Prologue
Pt I: Braving Lion Air
Pt II: It’s a Rich Man’s World
Pt III: Macet
Pt IV: Congkak & Pins
Pt V: Shitty Business
Pt VI: The Ride Home
Epilogue

Our time in Jakarta was coming to an end and we had to head to the airport.

Being a good host, Jones insisted on walking us till the check in counters.

From the FIDS we knew that we needed to proceed to Area E.

As one would need an air ticket to access the check-in area, we thanked Jones and said goodbye before the security.

A short queue was already forming for our flight.

The departure tax of 150,000 IDR was collected at the counter as well.

Past the immigration we had some free time before boarding.

A girl came up and offered us the service of Keris Business Lounge.

While 55,000 IDR wasn’t expensive, we declined since we were too full for more all-you-can-eat buffet.

Instead we offloaded our remaining rupiahs on snacks and drinks at one of the duty-free shops and relaxed at a food court.

An EK bird was spotted from there.

I noticed that it was raining for the first time while we were in Jakarta.

After lingering a little more we headed to our gate.

We were held up at the security due to some bottled drinks.

The drinks would cause me to visit the washroom later.

By the time we reached the gate, our row was already being called for boarding.

Three of us were supposed to be seated in Row 32 but the air crew got us to swap with three other passengers in Row 31.

And the lucky Mr Sloppy got the emergency exit seat.

The cute air crew (her name’s Virgie) came over and told Mr Sloppy about requiring his assistance during an emergency.

Apparently the previous guy was too young to to fulfill the duty which came with the seat.

However I doubted that Mr Sloppy would make a difference since he didn’t even bother to read the safety information card as requested by Virgie.

Meanwhile I could see a Garuda bird as well as an Etihad one from the window.

Route: CGK – SIN
Flight no.: JT 158
STD: 17:50
STA: 20:30
Time taken: 1h40m
Distance traveled: 551 miles / 891 km
Aircraft: Boeing 737-900ER
Cost: 31 SGD + 150,000 IDR dep tax

Our aircraft pushed back on time despite the rain.

There wasn’t a queue for taking off either.

The climb turned out to be one of the bumpiest that I ever had.

To distract ourselves from any bad thoughts, we played Monopoly Deal.

Somehow we managed to complete a game within the limited confines of our seats and by then the turbulence was over.

The bottled drinks were having effects on me and I had to excuse myself for the washroom.

Verdict: The air crew could do better with washroom’s maintenance.

I also got a photo of the cabin from the back.

I couldn’t recall whether the air crew did make a round of in-flight sales as we were all consumed with our next round of Monopoly Deal.

However we didn’t manage to complete round two before preparation for landing was announced by the Captain.

Soon the lights of Singapore appeared in our window.

The plane was slightly ahead of schedule when it landed at SIN.

Being quite far back on the plane meant that it took us some time to exit the plane.

And I took advantage of it to say goodbye to Virgie.

It is always a comfort to arrive in Changi Airport.

I discovered a new service between the airport and Johor Bahru.

JHB will slip further into oblivion now.

Quite a few flights were arriving at the same time which meant that our checked luggage took forever to arrive.

We split from there and our excursion to Big Durian came to a conclusion.

Big Durian Excursion [12 - 14 Dec 2010]
Prologue
Pt I: Braving Lion Air
Pt II: It’s a Rich Man’s World
Pt III: Macet
Pt IV: Congkak & Pins
Pt V: Shitty Business
Pt VI: The Ride Home
Epilogue

Having to wake at 7am to catch a plane is almost never pleasant.

Staying up till 3.30am to catch my team’s insipid defeat to a supposed inferior team on TV certainly wasn’t the most ideal preparation for the early morning call.

Luckily the airport was close enough to my place; two short public bus rides and around 30 minutes later I arrived at Terminal 1 with plenty of time for check-in and then breakfast.

However one member of the traveling party had other ideas.

He, whom I shall name as Mr Sloppy, decided to time his arrival 45 minutes after our scheduled rendezvous time of 8am after finding out from the printed itinerary that the plane was scheduled to depart only at 9.45am.

The rest of us went to have our breakfast at Burger King while waiting rather nervously for the arrival of Mr Sloppy.

8.45am came and went and there were still no signs of Mr Sloppy.

A SMS did come later and promised that he could reach by 9.10am.

Which happened to be the closing time of the check-in counters.

We queued up for check-in and hoped that we would be able to hold it open for Mr Sloppy if he was late.

And fortunately we didn’t have to.

Five minutes past nine Mr Sloppy strolled nonchalantly into T1 and attempted to locate the counter.

Apparently he had underestimated the traveling time from his place but didn’t seem too bothered at all.

On our way to the gate he asked what would happen if he arrived after 9.10am.

“They will still let me board even if I come after 9.10 right?” -.-

I don’t know and I prefer not to find out.

The immigration was painless since Singaporeans could use the automatic gates.

The security clearly wanted to prevent a repeat of such incident and checked the passports twice (once before and once after the automatic gates) to make sure that they match the travelers.

Gate was closing by the time we reached Gate D32.

Our ride was already waiting for us.

Refueling was being done.

We were assigned seats in row 5 which was the second row in the Economy section.

To be honest I thought that we were given these front seats because we were the last passengers to check in.

At least something positive came out of it since we would be amongst the first to disembark on arrival.

Route: SIN – CGK
Flight no.: JT 153
STD: 09:45 (ATD: 10:15)
STA: 10:25 (ATA:10:45)
Time taken: 1h30m
Distance traveled: 551 miles / 891 km
Aircraft: Boeing 737-900ER
Cost: 76 SGD

The business class seats looked comfy but I didn’t have enough time to snap a picture.

The regular ones looked decidedly less comfy and I didn’t like the dirty blue color.

I didn’t like the leg space either.

The red headrest cover did its patriotic duty of reminding Indonesians to use local products.

Rummaging through the seat pocket revealed interesting content:

Barf bag

Safety Card

“Invocation Card”

It contains prayers of six different religions.

Somehow this didn’t boast my confidence in Lion Air.

There was also an in-flight magazine which wasn’t available in my seat pocket.

Cathay B-HNN was parked beside us.

Our plane pushed back 20 minutes passed the scheduled departure

Bye Bye Singapore.

An SQ bird

There was quite a queue for take-off and MU506 for Shanghai was ahead of us.

EK433 to Dubai was after us.

Take-off:

The seat belt sign was switched off once the plane reached cruising altitude.

The crew went around to distribute Indonesian Arrival/Departure cards.

I always wonder what the immigration officials do with these cards.

The crew also did a round of on-board sales of drinks and snacks.

I didn’t buy anything but one of my friend bought a bottle of fruit juice for 10,000 IDR.

The stewardess couldn’t accept our old 10,000 IDR note and advised us to change them at banks when we arrived.

Meanwhile it was cloudy outside the window.

With no in-flight entertainment we just chatted among ourselves for most parts of the flight.

About an hour into the flight, the pilot made an announcement about preparing for landing in CGK.

However it took a while before Java appeared outside the window.

The countryside got built up as we descended.

Touching down…

… and finally!

The tight seat pitch was getting to us despite the short flight time.

I shuddered to think about my Air Asia X’s flight to Paris next year.

The cabin prior to disembarking.

As mentioned earlier we were amongst the first few to disembark and there wasn’t any queue at the immigration.

Somehow I was the only lucky person in my travel party to be asked to produce the return ticket by the immigration official.

Despite the immigration and the toilets none of the checked in luggage had appeared on the belt.

Our three checked bags did arrive intact in CGK and due to the 30 minute flight delay our Indonesian friends were already waiting for us at the arrivals.

We could say that we survived Lion Air…

…until the return flight in two days’ time.

Thoughts on Lion Air will be shared after the return flight.