THE DOWNSIDE OF TRAVELING

• Visits to toilet: 14
• Pills eaten: 18
• Hours slept in one night: 2-4
• Hours in the airplane: 6

Not everything goes according to plan every time. Halfway to the trip, we finally reached the low point (so far). Jakarta kicked us out with a mental and physical earthquake and Hanoi welcomed us with a tropical storm. Kai's stomach decided to finally put an end to his experimental eating, no food was safe from him in the streets or the nature. Therefore, a 9-hour train ride from Yogyakarta to Jakarta gets really exciting with a stomach rebelling and only a classic “hole in the floor” toilet. What makes your dehydrated face smile again during excellent squatting and balancing training is that damn cramp in your leg...

As you can imagine, we could get only a little, filtered taste of Jakarta and head off to Hanoi, Vietnam. Unfortunately, Jakarta didn't want to let us go that easily. After online check in we realised hold luggage is not included in our ticket (though our travel agent was specifically clear on the fact that for each leg a bag is included). Normally you just go online and buy the damn thing. But not with Malindo Air. Once checked in you cannot do anything, and no warning at check in about this. Calling customer service I was told we can pay for excess baggage at the airport, that’s about 7 euros per kilo per flight. It would come down to about 280 euros for one 20 kg bag! Madness. After about an hour of persuasion she agreed to cancel our check in, so that we could pay the normal bag fee. But this meant we could not check in online and the bag has to be paid at the airport in person, 4 h before flight. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 05:10 am the next morning. I assured her we would not be at the airport at 01:00 am for this purpose, especially as we could not even check in the luggage at the same moment. We then agreed we can pay for the bag the evening before, which suited fine as we were going to stay at an airport hotel anyway. 

Our beloved travel companions

After a decent, touristic day in the Indonesian capital, we needed to experience also the infamous Jakarta traffic jam. It took us thrice as much time to get to the gigantic airport. When we finally found the Malindo office (no signs even at the door of the office), and paid the fee of about 40 euros, we experienced our second earthquake. It was located in West Java, really close to Jakarta, 7.4 magnitude. Funny thing was I didn’t feel anything, but everyone else around me did. I suppose I was so exhausted from all the efforts to feel the quake. It was quite a big deal, as we later found out the quake had caused a tsunami warning all over Indonesia.

Making it to our hotel about 10 min away we couldn’t order a Grab (Asian equivalent to Uber) as the local data package in Kai’s mobile phone just ran out. How convenient: the only time we actually would need internet on-the-go, we don’t have it. We tried with the airport wifi but could not locate the driver outside the terminal. We asked a normal taxi which would have charged us 5 times the Grab tariff. So after about an hour of trying to get the wifi to work we finally managed to order Grab and arrive to our hotel for about 4 hours of sleep. 

Getting up at 02:45am is never fun, but even less so when you actually have not slept much at all, so I was not in the best mood. When overtired you either laugh at all kinds of silly things, or you get into an argument with the airline & security staff about sewing scissors. What else to do at 3:30 in the morning? I always take them on flights for my knitting hobby. Every single time I have flown in the past 20 years they have been okay to take in hand luggage, but not this time. I probably used an hour talking to them, demanding and pleading. I was super mad at them for not sticking to the international rules. The 4,5cm blunt scissors ended up going to the hold luggage, and I was not able to do my thing on the flights. Our entertainment was also limited as the three episodes of Casa de Papel season 3 were not downloaded offline after all, although they seemed to be when we left the hotel. To our surprise Malindo Air flights had an entertainment system screen on each seat but on the longer flight it did not work.

With a very short layover in Kuala Lumpur, we luckily got there on time. We had to quickly drink our 3 bottles of ice tea purchased at Jakarta airport because at KL they had another security check at the boarding gate which did not allow liquids. It made us extra mad as Kai was sick and the cheap airline does not offer anything to drink except for a glass of water. On top of all this the flight to Hanoi suffered from constant, terrible turbulence. As we were landing in the rain and wind people were screaming and bouncing in their seats. In the end we got there safely, not having to wait long at the customs, and even got a Grab ride right away. It was pouring down in Hanoi, and later we found out it is actually a tropical storm called Wipha which will have a strong impact on northern Vietnam for the next days.

Wipha smack in the middle of Hanoi. We were lucky to be able to fly at all...

Last, after checking into our hotel, we got - differing to the internet description - a tiny, windowless, damp, mouldy room. Quick upgrade required to another room with window and fresher air. Since Kai's stomach realised that it is in the next street and nature food country, cramps kept coming and he looked not as usual. I quickly found a place to buy a local Sim card with unlimited data (this time we would not make the same mistake running out of data in the last day) and withdrew enough cash to pay the doctor, hotel an other costs. I then found out there is an international clinic where we left immediately. The doctor gave him all kinds of medicines and diet instructions and overall a really fast, professional and good care!

Happy happy faces in the taxi

We are now going to take it easy the next few days, waiting for Kai to get better, watching TV and Netflix, not worrying about sightseeing. It works out well as the storm causes torrential rain for a few more days. It’s okay to rest without a guilty conscience.