FROM THE EDITOR [OCTOBER 15th 2007]

COCKROACHES
The time frames that allow you to go around in the Jakarta traffic are getting more tight.  Only between 1am and 5am in the morning, you can be sure of a ‘macet free’ ride. Booking flights early in the morning is the advice. But not with Garuda...

‘Maaf, mister. Your flight at 8.10 has been cancelled. No, there is no reason.  Did nobody inform you?’  I was bluffed. ‘Shouldn’t  YOU have called me?’ I asked in return. The lady did not respond, but instead started frantically typing on her computer. When I had booked a day earlier, they had even given me a lucky draw number. The operator had insisted I carefully save the number for the lucky draw in December. So together with the booking code I had carefully saved it in my mobile.

The Garuda counter was quiet. One girl was organising her hair, another couldn’t, because she was wearing a jilbab. She was sleepily resting her head on the palms of her hands. She probably had woken up early for the ‘sahur’, the final meal before a new day of fasting.  A middle sized cockroach hurried himself from one end of the desk to the other. Not one of the girls made a move the catch the bugger. ‘Sorry Mister, your name is not on the list.’  Miss Oktiviani-something uncomfortably awaited my reaction.  At this stage I was still confident that I would still be on the next Garuda flight to Bali. ‘Look. My name is Bartele Santema. I am sure I am on the list, as your call center has given me a booking code.‘  She typed again and shook her head. Now I was getting worried and tried to stick my head to the circle opening in the glass, but it was too high.  I didn’t want to be too hard on Oktiviani-something, as it could have been as well her birthday on that early October day, but I did urge her to make some calls. And so she did. In a way it was good to see that they were having  troubles themselves, getting through to their own complaint desk or whoever she was calling. She handed me the phone through the glass window. ‘Your ticket has not been paid’, an operator explained. ‘Well, why did they not tell me then?  I have given them my credit card number and in return they confirmed my booking by giving me the booking code AND lucky draw number! ‘ I think that, in order to  save cost for the ailing airline- they limit the outgoing calls to 30 seconds only, because before she could explain further, the connection was broken. Oktia-hupplethepup (this is Dutch for ‘something’)  did not make a second attempt. Instead, she advised me to go on standby and buy another ticket. I went to the check-in corner, where a Garuda official told me that my chances would be limited for the rest of the day, as all planes were overbooked. ‘We have 145 bookings for a plane of 130. Boleh coba aja. Silahkan... (you can try if you want. go ahead)’. I immediatly disliked this person and the whole company for that matter, and took a straight ride to the domestic terminal.

The distance between terminal 1 and terminal 2 is only one kilometer and it is very hard to find a taxi willing to bring you there. As a matter of fact, it is impossible unless you are willing to negotiate a ridiculous fee with the always present taxi mafia.  And of course, at arrival at the domestic terminal, the taxi driver has no change. I was not in a hurry (as he had hoped I guess), so I relaxed on his back seat.  Two cockroaches were trying to escape my tramping feet. The irritated taxi driver suddenly did find some change, and I had booked my first victory of the day.

Airasia is fantastic. Within 5 minutes I had a ticket (for half of the Garuda fee). The Airasia staff was active and friendly and the smile  of the girl with the colored lenses is still in my head. I regretted it only took her 5 minutes to give me a ticket. There were no cockroach reports here.

I still had some hours to spare, so I went into the executive lounge to get some breakfast. The man in front of me lifted the cover of the soup bowl and – HAJOEE!!! – he sneezed full in it. He slowly move to the next bowl as if nothing had happened, while I was standing perplexed behind him with my –still empty- soup cup in my hand.  ‘FLU?’ I asked him loud and in an angry tone. The middle-aged Indonesian businessman turned towards me, and his surprised:  ‘...no?...’, was an indicator he had no idea what my problem was. ‘You have bird flu. I know the symptoms. You better check yourself’, I told the man while putting back the empty soup cup.  His wife came closer, with a loaded plate of snacks,  asking him what the trouble was. The man shrugged his shoulders. From a corner of the lounge they kept staring at me with confused looks. It was my second victory of the day.  An annoying GE credit card sales man kept on bothering me. ‘Really mister, banyak gratis. No yearly fee! You can get discount on tickets!’  I looked up. ‘Even Garuda tickets?’, I asked him. ‘YES! You can pay Garuda with this card!’ I pretended I didn’t believe him. He, thinking I was seriously interested, was becoming franticially enthousiastic. ‘YES! You can! Really mister!’. His eyes were bulging at me. ‘Here..’, I said. ‘This is the Garuda information desk number. Call them and let me know if I can pay tickets with your card’. The poor young sales man was quick to move to his supervisor and ask him to use the phone. I finished my coffee and quietly left the lounge. When I looked back the GE creditcard sales men was still hanging over the phone in an obvious serious discussion with the Garuda operator. He waived me back, but I waived goodbye. It was a bit mean, but it needed a lot of small victories to make up for my lost day...

Bali. I wake up with a clear blue sky above me. I hear birds instead of mosques.  I can breathe fresh air. And although the Airasia girl with the colored lenses is still in my mind, I manage to work out the prizes for the next BuGils Lucky Draw contest:

Third Prize:  3 free tickets to Bali with Garuda
Second  Prize: 2 free tickets to Bali with Garuda
And the first Prize?  ONE FREE TICKET TO BALI WITH, YES!:  GARUDA!

Have a nice flight ....  -  Bartele

On picture above, EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK AAN of the ONE TREE BAR in Blok M