From Senggigi to Jakarta

Day 7 — A new companion, KEN

Our flight back to Jakarta left in the evening, so first we called at the instructor's home to apologise for not making it to the sate ayam party yesterday. This is the speargun the instructor uses to catch squid and so on when he dives. You pull the rubber band attached to it as hard as you can and hook it onto the fitting. Pull the trigger and the metal spear flies out with tremendous force.

Then we went out to Senggigi beach. The sea was blue and the waves calm. And again today, intense sunlight poured down.

Walking along the beach, a man selling spinning tops called us over. They were handmade tops, and thanks to a hole in the side, spin one hard and it makes a whistling sound. Ooi haggled and bought two.

We still had plenty of time, so to soothe our diving fatigue and look after our sunburnt skin we went to a massage place. An hour's full-body massage cost 750 yen. Astonishingly cheap. A little mishap happened here, so Ooi was staring out to sea in a daze.

Back to a warung for lunch. Here Ooi, who loves children, played with a little girl with the top. In the end he gave one of the tops to the girl. At first he only meant to lend it, but the girl seemed delighted, thinking it was a present. Good-natured Ooi didn't ask for it back and just watched her with a smile.

It was still quite early, but we took a taxi to the airport at Mataram. When we came here from Jakarta it was night, and we got into a taxi straight away, so we hadn't really seen the airport, but it was a very compact airport, and with the city around it, it had a very relaxed atmosphere.

We had a lot of time to spare, so we explored the area. There wasn't much to see, but a part-timer in front of a Yamaha motorbike shop called out to us. He said he was a student at the University of Mataram, in the engineering faculty. He spoke fluent English and looked clearly bright. Indonesians usually speak English as if reading it in Indonesian. For example, they pronounce "Air" as "ai-ru".

We went through security to the departure lounge. In Indonesia, airport tax and so on isn't included in the ticket. So you have to pay it directly at a counter at the airport. It's fairly expensive; at Mataram airport we had to pay about 350 yen.

This is the ticket. The blue paper at the top right is proof of paying the airport tax. All in all, very flimsy scraps of paper.

Unlike Batavia Air on the way out, Lion Air made the announcement exactly on time. We queued, showed our tickets and walked out of the building straight onto the runway. A world away from Centrair or Jakarta. Passengers walk straight to the plane and board by the stairs.

Aboard the plane. The air conditioning worked well, and the plane looked fairly new. Cheaper than Batavia, and Lion Air isn't bad at all (lol). And as on Batavia, the flight attendants all had great figures and were beautiful. Lion Air's in particular wore uniforms like a cheongsam with an Indonesian-style pattern, with daring slits up to the thigh showing bare legs; quite sexy. After all, on Batavia Air's website, in the recruitment section for flight attendants, the first requirement is "nice looks", then "nice figure", and only third "able to speak English". And there's an age requirement of 20 to 30. In Japan such blatant discrimination would probably be a scandal. Maybe Indonesian businessmen who like women choose their airline by the flight attendants.

Arrived in Jakarta. Unlike when we came from Japan, it didn't feel very humid. We seemed to have got quite used to the heat.

While waiting for our checked bags, I went to the toilet and there was a tank in front of the urinals with goldfish swimming in it.

To wait for KEN's arrival, we moved to the international terminal. First we phoned the rental car company man and met up. We told him our friend's flight and he agreed to wait until then. To kill time, A&W again.

Like the locals, we prepared something like this and waited for KEN to arrive.

KEN arrived. Like us, he came via Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. He said he'd been swamped with research until yesterday.

The rental company man drove us to a hotel, which was nice, but unfortunately many places were already full, and only at about the fifth did we finally find one with a room. A bit pricey, about 2,600 yen for the three of us. But it had a hot shower and the room was faultless. It even had a TV. Tomorrow we would land on Sumatra.

To the next day