Vacation Series Part 2: Ok, so now I can't leave the jungle?

So all hell broke loose.
And by hell, I specifically mean the 28 hour ferry ride from hell. An no I’m not talking about Charon’s dingy , because at least after paying that fare I would have arrived on time. Not twenty-five hours late.

But let me start from the beginning.

Looking back on things it’s really all Trigana Air’s fault. Trigana is a small Indonesian airline, and it’s pretty much the only airline that flies into Pangkalan Bun,  the jumping off point for the jungle cruise. Trigana also only flies out of two cities….on  the island of Java. Now in most cases this wouldn’t be an issue. You simply go to a travel agent and have them buy a ticket, and you use said ticket when you arrive in said city. Well Indonesia is not most cases. If an airline doesn’t fly to your city then they don’t have an office in your city. And if an airline doesn’t have an office in your city, then you cannot even purchase tickets for their flight.  But like I said, this usually isn’t a huge problem, for me at least. I live in the grand metropolis that is Makassar, and it is serviced by pretty much every airline in Indonesia….except Trigana.

While this little issue was seemingly about to throw a major monkey wrench into my holiday travel plans, my friend Abbey swooped into save the day. Abbey lives in Semerang, Semrang is on Java, Semerang also happens to be one of the two cities that Trigana services,  as a result Semerang + Abbey became my new favorite combo. Abbey was generous enough to offer up her time and money by going to the airport and paying for 5 Trigana tickets on her dime.  At about $73 bucks a piece, this was no small gesture. Not wanting to take advantage of Abbey’s kindness or checkbook, we all opted for one way tickets. The plan was to simply purchase our return tickets when we all arrived at the Semerang airport....because after all Trigana does a daily flight and who’s really doing that much traveling between the two. EVERYBODY that’s who. Everybody and their effing mother is flying from Pangkalan Bun, so that by the time we arrived EVERY  return flight was sold out until the 4^th of  January.  While this realization provided a few hours of mind numbing panic ( What?!? I am not spending new years in the Jungle, damnit! I need a cocktail!), our tour company quickly came to the rescue. Apparently we had two options. Leave the day we wanted on a $150 flight or leave a day later on the $50 , 24 hour ferry.  Four out of the five of us opted for the cheaper option ( Judith doesn’t like boats or small spaces, and she isn’t cheap).

I often say, usually in reference to some dumb thing that one of my friends has done, that we sometimes “make choices” and we must live with the consequences of those choices. Well I made a choice. I made a choice to be cheap, and as a result I experienced a hell of my own making.  Things started off fine. After departing the boat, we stopped by the ferry office to pick up our tickets. Judith was departing the 27^th, and we were departing the 28^th at 6pm. No problem. Jeni then drove us back into Pangkalan Bun, where I got us out of having to pay for  three hotel rooms by explaining that two people in our group were married and the other three women were to scared to not sleep in the same room. Score.  The next morning Judith departed for the airport and Corey, Abbey, Mary and I went to explore all that Pangkalan Bun had to offer.  Which wasn’t much. The next morning we had a leisurely lunch and then started the jaunt back to Kumai (where the ferry would depart from). Then the trouble began.

The first sign that things weren’t going to continue to sail smoothly was when Jeni called to inform us that the ferry would no longer be leaving at six pm  but at 10 pm. About twenty minutes later we were informed that the ferry would actually arrive at 1am  the next morning, and  then leave at 3 am. Disgruntled, but not defeated we decided to return to our favorite losmen, Losmen Hijau,  and once again commandeer the one tv in the lobby and maybe take a rest before our early morning departure. Around 8pm Jeni appeared at the losmen with the news that our ferry would in fact be leaving at 10pm that night. Huzzah! We hurridly packed our bags and prepared to leave. Seeing that we only had occupied Losmen Hijau’s lobby for about 5 hours and would in fact not be spending the night, we asked the propetier if we could maybe have half of our money back.  After shuffling his feet for about 30 minutes and consulting with his wife, he finally said no, because they had to “clean” both rooms. I then explained that their “cleaning” consisted of spraying air freshner. He countered with the fact that we were “occupying” rooms that others might have wanted. I retorted with the fact that NO ONE had walked in for 6 hours. Our conversation eventually ended with me yelling “SHAAAAMMMEEE” , a la Modern Family (http://youtu.be/3ThXs4qAxYM) at him and doing the Arabic “ I wash my hands of this” hand gesture.  And then Jeni came back to inform us that he had gotten the time for the wrong ferry, and that our ferry would be arriving at 6 am. Needless to say, no one spoke of the “shame” incident and we did in fact spend the night. At the full price.

The next morning we awoke with new hope that this, this would be  the day we finally got the hell off of Kalimantan.  Our ferry didn’t leave until 3pm on the 29^th. But hey, after  standing for 2 hours in an airless holding room and surviving a mildly terrifying stampede, we finally made it on to the boat.  Having learned our lesson , Mary and I decided not to skimp on accommodations and took the deluxe cabin, while Corey and Abbey opted for the standard room. Both lacked air-conditioning. Our room, however, didn’t have any roaches. I think. We spent the next 28 hours watching tv  in the standard room ( we couldn’t control the channels since the only remote was at the bar) and eating coconut cookies and clemintines.  After what seemed like a lifetime, Semerang was in sight.