WELCOME

Today I announced my first time ever blogs. I have been motivated to do this by Maya who has been blogging for some years and recently started a new blog with the purpose of letting off steam. So I thought I also can use some letting off steam. At first I thought “who’s going to read these anyway?” but then I realized I don’t need to care. It’s more like putting a message in a bottle and tossing it into the ocean of the internet. Someone will read it one day, someone with patience. I have a lot to share and I know I like to keep it as detailed as it gets (one could say “I have a problem with keeping it short” but I rather not see it as a problem). I hope you have the patience

So I started this blog and three others about a month ago. I’ve been updating it quite often ever since but this may not be sustained as I’m not this much online when I’m on the road. I’ve decided to make use of this period of temporarily settling in a ‘civilized’ place by sharing things.

I was waiting to be more satisfied with the first part of the content to invite you here but I realized that’s very hard. I’m not that happy with my blogging skills but it’s a new thing for me anyway. I feel like I’m writing an e-mail to a good, concerned friend who doesn’t have a face or a name. It’s like keeping a diary starting with “dear journal” and then letting the world see it. It’s weird. I just hope it’s not boring and that you have a little patience to see what I have to share.

I just learned that the order of blog posts go reverse. So what you see right below this one is the last post I sent and the first post I wrote is at the bottom of this page, or even on the ‘history’ part which can be reached through the side panel. I would really appreciate it if you can start with the couple of first entries rather than the last ones, so that the blog gains a little relevance.

I would really like to hear some comments about what I wrote so please click the ‘comment’ link right under the posts to give me some feedback. If you really like what I write and want to see what I write as soon as I put it online you can ‘subscribe’ to this blog using the ‘subscribe’ links on the side panel (RSS).

As I said I have 4 blogs now. This one is about my inner journey and I have one on my inner journey, one on relationship stories and one in Turkish.


Welcome to my little web.

But this is an old tale you tell – they say.

But surely this is a new tale you tell – some say.

Tell it once again – they say;

Or, do not tell it again – others say.

But I have heard all this before –say some;

Or, but this is not how it was told before – say the rest.

And these, these are our people, Dervish Baba, this is man.


Naqshibandi Recital

as quoted in The Way of The Sufi by Idries Shah

Names

I come from a country where the only names you can legally give your children are the ones that appear in Turkish names dictionary. This not only limits being creative while naming your kids, it also makes it impossible for millions of people to be named in their mother language. You can name your child “sold” (in Turkish of course) but you cannot use the letters x or w that exists in Kurdish, or anything that is not Turkish. Strange enough many Arabic names are fine as it is considered good to give Islamic names to your children.


I have been to many countries where people have interesting to strange names but so far no other country came close to Philippines in being liberal in choosing a culture for naming. Of course, because of the influence of Spanish colonizers and Catholic religion, the most common names are mostly Spanish, such as Maria or Juan. Then comes the American influence and names like Ronald and Grace. But it seems today’s Filipino families do not need any more influence to find names. For example, Maya’s cousins have the names from Greek, German, French and other cultures. They all have the same family name but their first names are like a world tour: Abigail, Fabienne, Athena, Odessa, Jamaica, Fraulein, Jefferson.


I really love this. Because of the fact that people learn to spell all sorts of names all the time, Philippines also became the first country where some people managed to spell my name correctly. Wikipedia says that if Malaysia didn’t get its independence first Philippines could be called Malaysia. It seems, once that name was taken they gave up about the search and kept the former colonizers name and there seems to be no change in that; it remains the only country in South East Asia with a western name. But they just like it better this way and that's perfectly fine as long as we learn how to spell it correctly (double p, single n, and with the the). At least they don't have a complex about their country having the same name with a very beautiful bird!

Traveler vs. Tourist

There is a long lasting and never resolved dispute about tourists and travelers. Many times it seems these two do not like each other and sometimes people serving tourists do not like travelers and vice versa. It seems to me that most people do not know the distinction as it is mostly hard to tell by the looks of a person whether s/he is a tourist or a traveler.

A tourist, in my humble description, is a person who travels for a limited time (tours), has a greater per day budget, usually buys a whole trip rather than planning it himself, buys lots of souvenirs, takes lots of photos but does not learn much about the local culture or get to meet local people. These are not necessarily bad things. Most people do not have the time to travel long and learn local languages and since their holiday time mostly means a time to rest, they also prefer full facilities, rather than learning about the local ways of doing things. It is understandable.

A traveler, again in my humble dictionary, is a person who chooses traveling as a way of life, either for life or for a certain amount of time (but rarely for just 2 weeks). He may still buy some souvenirs but he has to be careful that his bag doesn’t get too heavy because he won’t be hiring porters to carry it for him. He may stay in some hotels but because he normally wants to make his money last as long as possible to be able to travel more, he stays in guest houses, camps and tries the local foods, takes the local buses, etc. Since he wants to use the local market he learns some daily local language and meanwhile makes a few local friends. This also is not a good thing without exceptions. For example, some travelers get too stingy and overdo the bargaining. Some get too arrogant as if they are Marco Polo.

I read somewhere that, some years ago the Tourism Ministry of Thailand conducted a research to see which one is better for their tourism industry. The result was in favor of travelers. The final report said that the travelers spent their money in smaller and more local establishments and thus helped the distribution of wealth; that travelers are much more sensitive to culture and environment, and this type of tourism is more sustainable. So they seem to have concluded that the Thai government shall support travelers and this may be a reason why Thailand remains a very friendly destination for backpackers.


Please do not get me wrong; not everybody that has a backpack is a traveler, and not everybody who stays in an expensive hotel is a tourist. In most cases it is not that easy to say which is which. And also some real travelers still leave a bad influence and some tourists do god things. What is important is to have a good travel and to leave a good influence behind.

Tourism in general is disastrous for the environment. There are many wasteful sides of the resort tourism to start with. The buffet meals are the most wasteful way to feed ourselves. Hundreds of air-condition rooms in a hotel (plus their mini bars) has the same effect on global warming as an airplane. Many tourists prefer to keep on with their habits when the are on tour and for this the hotels have to import all sorts of food, beer and whatnot to suit their tastes. The cultural influence is also pretty degenerative as these people don’t get the time to learn how to respect the local culture (as if they’d care). Since they don’t know about the local prices they pay very high prices for everything and although on the surface this seems to be a good thing for the local tourism industry, it raises prices and creates the image that tourism is the new gold. They create these concentrated areas which sooner or later becomes too crowded with hotels and shops to enjoy. All around the world you can see this kind of tourist ghost towns which were once very nice spots but are now completely spoilt. Strange enough they also look the same, with the same kind of resort hotels you can see everywhere.

On the other hand, when one has the time and energy to go the hard but more rewarding way, there is much to discover. Taking a local bus is not as comfortable as the air conditioned tourist bus but it gives one the chance to feel where he is. Staying in a village house or a homestay, being a guest to the people of the place is of course why one goes all the way there. For me it has been hard to understand why people go half way around the world to spend a week in a resort hotel which is a replica of the one back home. If you cannot handle eating the local delicacy of fried cockroaches, maybe you can have a coffee in the village coffee house and learn a little about their daily pastimes. There is hardly any hotel entertainment as fulfilling as a village wedding.

But there are disturbing things about travelers also. Some travelers demand too much from the locals as if they have to be taken as local citizens because they don’t stay in hotels. Some demand lower than local prices and exaggerate haggling. The stereotype of a traveler is also pretty scruffy and dirty. This can be excused by being on the road for so long but only to a certain extend. I have also met many travelers who get easily angry with people who either confuses them with or wants them to be tourists. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s what they know and it’s ok. If you want to have a chance to change this, start with having a positive attitude.

There is also the off road impact. When bus loads of tourists take a safari tour to see elephants, they bring in cash for the conservation effort but they also leave a huge footprint. But travelers also do this, although it is on a smaller scale. With travelers things can be a little more dangerous because they like to discover, to go to places where not many people go. Thus they can find an unspoilt piece of land and in some cases spoil some it. Remember that many beaches and other famous touristic places which are clogged with resort hotels today were discovered by some adventurous travelers in the 60s. It is a hard work to keep your mouth shut and also let the locals know that you rather camp there but it is very necessary.

These are just a few points of the ever-lasting debate of tourists versus travelers. You can always come across a supposed traveler complaining that those backpackers come to small towns and spoil the place by demanding air conditioned rooms and toast for breakfast, just like tourists. On the tourists side, they have an equivalent complaint about travelers keeping the rotten huts from being renovated by staying there and smoking dope all the time. There are endless examples.

Although I feel myself to be closer to a traveler, nobody likes to be boxed and neither do I. After all I’ve recently been taking great many photos and visiting very touristic places like Angkor Wat. The way I travel is more of traveling fast for some time and then settling and feeling one place for longer. I’m not a big a fan of local transport as I used to be also but I love new food experiments (recently I’ve been happily introduced to fertilized, semi developed chicken eggs). I just like being there, rather than seeing what’s there.

When you are going somewhere just think that you are actually going to be there and have an influence and be influenced. Make it nice. Give thanks.

Pros and Cons of Being a Foreigner

Sometimes I complain that being seen as a foreigner rather than just someone, and in some cases as a money milking cow, is insulting. There are not many places where foreigners are treated like normal people, like in Malaysia. In other places it has its advantages and disadvantages.


Anybody who travels knows this, if you look like a tourist with a camera hanging over your belly, you are inviting the local establishments to overcharge you. It is true that this cannot be generalized and I have even experienced taxi drivers who would still take the normal way even when I had all my tourist gear on me but unfortunately this is a rarity, a nice surprise.

In India, sometimes it was so disturbing that I gave up all my western outfit pretty early and went around barefoot like a local traveling person. Of course, they would know I was a westerner but their expectations were clearly lower. Speaking a few words of the local language also helps but I recommend that if you want to ask “how much?”, first you learn the numbers. I have seen the local five turn into the English “ten” very easily.

On the positive side, being a foreigner makes people feel you are their guest. You may ask the road and have someone guide you all the way to where you wanted to go. Or you may be taking a crowded shared mini-van and they empty the front seat only for you. Sometimes some people give you the feeling that it would be a big crime for them if they leave you stranded without that red string you are looking for and they go and find it for you.

You are also allowed to ignore the local moral rules to a certain extent. As long as your personal sense of respect permits it, you can do things the locals would never do out of fear of being criticized by their fellow citizens. You can kiss your partner where no locals does it and mostly, people around you would take it as “that’s the way it is in their country” (of course, there may be some old ladies around who wouldn’t like it at all and give you a terrible frown). You can jump on a moving bus or get off at the red lights, use the exit to enter places, forget to tip and sing aloud if you like. It’s not that I do all these things but I realize sometimes that just being who I am is already too much in some local standards. Funny enough this applies to my “home” city where I’m still seen as a foreigner anyway.


The other day we were out at night and felt thirsty. We stopped by a 7-Eleven and I got a bottle of beer and asked them to open it. Somehow they were not equipped to do that but the security guard did it for me. I sat there having a donut and drinking my beer when the cashier turned up with a little plastic bag and asked me if he can put my bottle in it. He said it’s not permitted to drink liquor there! I told him I could go out but he insisted I don’t mind as long as it’s in a plastic (as if I would put a bottle of coke in a plastic bag). Realizing that I’m the only privileged person having a beer in a 7-Eleven I felt like a colonial master (it was night, I was half drunk, I excused myself in the morning).

Here in the Philippines they see me as a “Cano” (from Americano) and I let it be. Thinking how American people usually act (I make a terrible generalization using the disrespectful loud tourist stereotype) I feel I do not need to stress myself too much about the local customs. But I do respect these people (honestly they are really great) and try to learn being respectful. I don’t feel I’m being overcharged here because they are not so used to tourists anyway (the few foreigners around seem to be rather living here). I’m just happy to be the guest of these very kind people and I do my best.

Pilgrimage

I know this journeying on the face of the world is nothing but a journey inside to find my inner self and in that sense it is a pilgrimage. When I travel I try to be conscious of what my experiences touch inside me. Sometimes the reason why I’m there makes itself very clear, and sometimes it is pretty hard to understand why I had to live that particular experience. Everything happens for a reason and this pilgrimage I’m on will lead me to my Mecca sooner or later.



I have also been to many pilgrimage places literally. I have been in the golden temple of Amritsar, the main Zoroastrian fire temple in Yazd, two Kumbha Mela’s in North India all at the right time. I’ve had a hand shake with H.H. Dalai Lama, did the 10 rounds around the biggest Buddhist temple Borobodur, been to the source of river Ganga and more. They all have been very memorable moments but I know they are also just superficial. I know I don’t need to go on a pilgrimage to become a pilgrim. I am already one.



In his book The Art of Pilgrimage, writer Phil Cousineau gives the description of pilgrim by some other people.

A pilgrim is a traveler that is taken seriously.

Ambrose Bierce

Pilgrims are poets who create by taking journeys.

Richard R. Niebuhr

Personal answers to ultimate questions, that is what we seek.

Alexander Eliot

And he lists five excellent practices for travelers on sacred journeys:

Practice the arts of attention and listening.

Practice renewing yourself everyday.

Practice meandering toward the center of every place.

Practice the ritual of reading sacred texts.

Practice gratitude and praise-singing.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old,


seek what they sought.


Matsuo Basho

Brief summary of my time in South East Asia

At the time I started this blog, I’ve been in South East Asia for over 20 months continuously. Although I may write about my further pilgrimages as they happen I don’t think I’ll go back to writing what has happened during that time, apart from some anecdotes like the ones I already added. So I want to give a summary of what I’ve been doing and where I’ve been all this time.

I arrived in Bangkok, Thailand on November 14, 2006. After a few days of enjoying this great city which reminded me of Istanbul, I traveled to Kho Chang, which was perhaps a too touristic spot to start this trip but it was nice nevertheless. It was just to show how small the world is that on the remotest beach of that island I bumped into friends from Turkey. After a week I went back to Bangkok and with many friends went to the Rainbow World Gathering.

The site of the World Gathering was a secluded little beach on the West coast quite near the border of Myanmar. I made myself a camp house out of bamboo and camped with many old friends for the next 2 months. It was truly a very special experience to be free with friends on a tropical beach. I enjoyed a lot, learned a lot and most importantly sang a lot. First time in my life I started to compose little songs and made melodic announcements everyday. I was nourished by all the smiles and laughter I motivated on other people.

On the morning of the first day of the year I hurt my slipped disc on my back pretty badly and couldn’t stand up for 3 days. I decided to see it as a lesson and did my best to receive the learning it brought me. And it brought lot of things into my sight. I was surrounded with all sorts of healers from reiki masters to homeopaths, from acupuncturists to massagists. I’m so thankful to all of them and especially Herman who with his magic needles and great experience in acupuncture helped me stand up and walk around after a relatively short time.

During the gathering I crossed to Myanmar by boat a couple of times to extend my visa but didn’t stay longer than 10 minutes. At the end of the gathering I left with Ayşegül to a nearby monastery, Suan Mokkh, for a 10 day silent meditation retreat and a little longer stay in the monastery itself. Then we made it back to Bangkok for a visit to the embassy. For some reason they couldn’t extend her passport quickly and we decided to go to Malaysia which gives everyone 3-months free visas at the border. We went to Kuala Lumpur to the Turkish embassy and learned that they ne

eded two months to send her application to Turkey by normal mail and receive the reply also by normal mail. So we decided to stay and feel Malaysia. On March full moon we joined Tim and Nina to go to the oldest jungles on earth, Taman Negara. It was truly amazing to see such big trees and big everything in such an untouched environment where we could camp.

After a few days we went back to our first stop in Penang, got a nice old style room in a fisherman’s village and got acclimatized. From the first moment I felt very welcome in Malaysia and I thought

of it as a great base to be in South East Asia. Because of the multiculturality of the country people didn’t treat foreigners as if they are Martians, like they do in most other countries in Asia. Our friend Rene started to teach me CFQ, which is a kind of qigong developed by a master from Pen

ang. I was immediately captured by it and started to practice 3-4 hours a day. I also received healing from Master Yap who helped me to touch my toes standing up after more than 10 years. My slipped disc problem have been more or less history ever since.

Then Ayşegül decided that she wanted to go back to Turkey and I thought I’d rather not go to Indonesia alone and instead went to China. I went overland to Bangkok, spent some time by the river Kwai watching the famous bridge and took a boat on the river Mae Kong from Thailand to China passing between Myanmar and Laos.

China was a whole different world. It came as a big surprise because I expected it to be less developed and m

ore historic. On the other hand I had never been to a place where it was so hard to find someone who knew some English or would try to communicate in any other way. I quickly went to Dali in

the mountainous Yunnan Province and found my friends. After only a few days of acclimatizing to the cool mountain air we went up to over 2.000 meters to start the seed camp for the coming local rainbow gathering. The plateau overlooking the Erhai Lake was heavenly. And we had great relations with the local villagers as well as the monks of the mountain. However the book-minded officials couldn’t fit our presence there into anything they could report to

their higher officers in Beijing and asked us to go down only after a couple of weeks. It was sad but all things happen with a reason anyway.

Then I met Maya. Dali was a perfect little romantic old city to spend days walking on the streets, climbing its ancient walls, going for forest walks. After a few weeks we went to see how close we can get to Tib

et and visited the famous Shangri-La (Zong Dian) where most inhabitants and the culture are Tibeta

n. We had some butter tea, visited the local Potala and stocked some cool weather for the times we’d go down to the lowlands.

Then we quickly went back to Dali and Kunming and booked two beds on the 2-day sleeper bus to Luang Pra

bang in Laos. I was selfishly hoping to find a less developed country but at least the old and very beautiful town by the Mae Kong was too touristy to be undeveloped. There we had a room overlooking the river and went long walks, cycled around, swam in the local waterfalls, all of which were very nice, except for getting all our spare cash stolen from our room while we were in the shower.

Well…

We passed by Vientiane, the capital of Laos, which seemed to be a boring flat town with nothing to do other than take a bus to Thailand, which we did after we met shortly with Renate there.

In Turkish we say “fox goes around and around but always ends up in the fur shop” and for me Bangkok seemed to be that fur shop. About a year from today, on Maya’s birthday we were there with Evrim and Bene and that was the last time I spoke Turkish with someone face to face. On our way back to Penang we stopped by the island Kho Phangan which is so famous with its full moon parties but we

found a peaceful romatic spot on a tiny connected island and chilled out. Than we went back to Penang and I took a course on CFQ.

In September 2007 we went to Sumatra Indonesia for two months. Indonesia reminded me of India which I lov

e and miss so much. The people seemed alive and real, the nature and culture were very rich. There were lots to explore. But we had not made a very good timing by arriving during Ramadan which made it hard to find food and travel. Our first stop, Lake Toba, a mega-volcanic crater lake which is also the world’s biggest lake on an island, made us stop immediately. By th

e tranquil lake days passed slowly. I had heard a lot about this place but still it’s affect on me was like nothing I expected. We were not camping or anything but we always felt the grandeur of Mother Nature.

After hardly leaving the land of the Christian Bataks we went to Bukittinggi, the land of the Minangkabau c

ulture. For the Ramadan festival (Muslim equivalent of Christmas) we went to hide by Lake Maninjau which was another volcanic lake but smaller. We had a tree house and it rained almost all the time we were there. Back to Bukittinggi we had very hard tome to find tickets back up North

and we had to wait there for another week, which was not that bad because on the full moon night the rains started to give a break and we went up to Mount Merapi under a beautiful sky. It was my first volcano and when we arrived at the peak by sunrise the feeling was completely out worldly. In the distance we could see tens of big an small volcanoes dotting the landscape dwarfing the human townships.

Then we went to Aceh, the name of which I knew by the boxing day ’05 tsunami and earthquake disaster. Banda Ac

eh was still a big construction site and it was hard to look at all the rubble and ruins by the seaside and imagine there were so many houses where there was the sea now. Weh Island was my first

truly coral island. We had a bungalow with its porch right over the sea and any time of the day we’d look down and could see all sorts of very bright colored fish and other sea creatures. So we swam, we snorkeled and I couldn’t hold myself and took a PADI open-water diving course. The stuff I saw during my first ever dives would make my future dives look pale in comparison and it was great to step on this whole new world. Just before we left Sumatra we went to Bukit Lawan

g to say hello to the native orang utans and almost died tubing on river Bohorok.

Oh my God, I said I’d summarize it, didn’t I? Well, I guess that’s the best I can do.

Next on our list was Bali but we thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to go there on such high season and instead went to Thailand, sat another 10-day meditation retreat, and entered Cambodia just before Christmas, which was still not such a good idea. Sihanoukville Beaches were pretty packed but around Kampot and Phnom Penh were quite nice. We had a week in Siem Reap practically

studying the Angkor ruins and left Cambodia in less than a month after having done the typical tourist circle around the country.

We passed throug

h Thailand and Malaysia quickly and flew to Java, Indonesia. Near Solo we discovered some really interesting pyramids that looked truly out of place. We had a pilgrimage to the biggest Buddhist temple on earth Borobodur and the nearby Hindu temples of Prambanan. I also personally enjoyed the old capital Yogyakarta as a small city. Then we had a stopover on the breath-taking

great caldera of the Bromo volcano and went to Bali.

We had prepared ourselves to find Bali fully spoilt by tourism but the reality was better. Bali is one of the f

ew places I’ve been to which has a such a uniquely alive old culture. It’s nothing like the Hinduism i

n India but it is at least equally alive and inside the daily lives of people. In a short time we got saturated with festivals and rituals. Then discovered the nature with it’s nice volcanoes, rice ter

races, hot springs and of course beaches. We saw the dolphins, dived and snorkeled, had a completely silent new year day and just before we left we tried wave surfing.

We wan

ted to go to Borneo but Adam Air went bankrupt the hour we were supposed to fly and missing our connecting flight we ended up in Kuala Lumpur instead. We decided to see it as a sign and decided to have a month of sabbatical until the World Rainbow Gathering in China. Right after Maya flew to the Philippines I bought this little Asus EeePC I call Susu, went back to Penang and started to write. Just the day we were booking our flights to Macau, China announced their new visa policy which made it practically impossible for me to get a visa anywhere

in SE Asia. So after a little more time in Penang I came to Philippines and the last 55 days I’m here. At the moment I’m surviving my 4th typhoon.

Wow, I really rushed this and it’s still….. 2.004 words. Oh, I forgot all the numbers. I love numbers, here they are.

I’m in South East Asia the last 628 days. Of the 8 countries I’ve been to, I’ve spent most time in Malaysia (221), Thailand (151) and Indonesia (116). I’ve camped for 75 days, stayed in monastery/retreats for 33 days and slept on busses or trains for 20 nights. I was in 2 rainbow gatherings, 2 meditation retreats, dived 10 times and got almost 2 years older. That’s all.

Monkey business

Monkey business got a whole new meaning for us when we visited the Ulu Watu temple in Bali.

At the gates of the big seaside gardens of the temple complex we were firmly warned to keep our bags, cameras, glasses and other things safe in case they are grabbed by the monkeys. We were also told and later reminded by many signs around the temple that the monkeys could get aggressive and feeding them was not a good idea. That’s why it was surprising to see some people selling little portions of fruits and nuts to feed the monkeys around the gardens. After all the warnings none of the tourists seemed to dare to do that anyway but then we realized the fruits were a part of a more sophisticated business.

While we were enjoying the views of the high cliffs by the main temple we were aware that many monkeys were scrutinizing us in case we were carrying something interesting. That’s when we heard someone scream. A monkey had grabbed the glasses from the eyes of a Japanese tourist and was sitting on a rock by the high cliff staring back at us. One of the kids who were selling fruits quickly approached the owner of the glasses and asked if he needs his help to retrieve his glasses. Then he jumped on the rocks and approached the monkey waving a little bag of fruits towards him. The monkey holding the glasses tight on one hand approached the boy, and grabbed the fruit before the boy could snap and take the glasses back. Then he went a bit further where he felt safely away from the reach of any humans and ate his fruit, still holding the glasses on one hand. When he was finished he came back within the reach of the boy and got another portion of fruit. This scene repeated few more times while the boy got closer to the deadly heights of the rocky cliff, trying to imitate the agility of his rival. When the monkey was finally bored of the game or filled with fruit he let the boy take the glasses which were a mess of crushed metal with one lens missing. Nevertheless the boy was paid for his fruits and was tipped for his heroics.

This is the way we learned what the monkey mind was capable of. They had silently made a business deal with the fruit sellers of the temple and although it was surely a monkey business, it was profitable for everyone but the unsuspecting tourists.

The day we were grounded

Indonesia consists of thousands of island and to go from one to another used to require a long ferryboat journey until the cheaper airline companies took over the market. Today there are over 20 Indonesian economy airline companies who carry people within the archipelago. However none of them, even the national Garuda Airlines, are not permitted to fly to the West due to their weak security and history of accidents.

One strange thing about these flights is that, as oppose to buying in advance to make it cheaper, in Indonesia if you want to pay less you have to buy your ticket at the latest minute. Of course you take the risk of not finding a last minute ticket and that’s why we also played the auction game of booking flight tickets at the latest time they are available.

We were in Bali and wanted to fly to Indonesian side of Borneo and cross to the Malaysian side the day before our visas ended. For this we had to fly from Bali to Jakarta and from there to Pontianak on Indonesian Borneo. Although we were checking the internet everyday, suddenly it seemed like all the flights were getting booked. We wanted to fly with Adam Air which was offering the most reasonable prices but we missed the last tickets for the Jakarta – Pontianak flight. So instead we booked Adam Air from Bali to Jakarta and Lion Air from Jakarta to Pontianak.

8th of March 2008, early in the morning we went to Denpasar International Airport, checked our luggage in and went to the gate to wait for our flight. While waiting I read on the newspaper from the day before that Adam Air would reduce the number of it’s flights next week. From the waiting hall we watched our orange colored plane be taxied to the gate and our luggage get loaded onto it. Then the newspaper of the present day arrived and on the cover was the news that Adam Air is unable to pay the insurance fees due to the big number of crushes it had and was going to freeze operations within a week. Then we watched our luggage be unloaded and the plane be taxied away from the gate. “Please wait” was the only answer we received from the gate crew even after the flight seemed to be delayed an hour. Strange enough on the airport screens it was still written that the flight was on time. When we started to push for some more answers we realized we were not the only people getting anxious about their connecting flight from Jakarta. There was a Taiwanese couple bound for Taipei and a German guy with a long chain of connecting flights he was afraid to miss.

When we were taken to the office downstairs the personnel there were already in a hard situation trying to answer so many demands at the same time and quickly. I fixed all my attention on one person and became her shadow whichever corner she went to hide until I managed to make her buy for us tickets by Garuda Air to Jakarta, leaving now. We ended up literally running together with another guy to the ticket and check-in counters. Just when I started to run towards the gate for the new flight I was stopped by the same guy telling me that I had to go down with him to the baggage claim and fish our stuff from a large pile of stranded Adam Air luggage there.

Somehow this exercise took my anxiety a bit and we enjoyed the non-economy class flight with the big Garuda airliner. But there was a little problem. Because of this delay, we seemed to have only 40 minutes left between our arrival to and departure from Jakarta, which was a very risky amount of time considering that the check-out counters sometimes close half an hour before the flight. So we made a plan. As soon as we landed we would split and I would go down to pick our luggage while Maya would run to the Lion Air check-in counter and stop them from closing. This we did. The 10 minutes waiting in front of the carrier belt felt like an hour and but when I finally made it out of the gates I realized we still had 30 minutes. Then the information guy told me that this was the international terminal and the Lion Air was in the domestic terminal, few kilometers away and I had to take a taxi. I looked around to see if I could spot Maya in this crowds but of course it was impossible, she could have been even on a different floor. So I went ahead with our initial plan to meet at the check in counter and took a taxi. Surprisingly when I arrived at the Lion Air check in there were still a line of fellow passengers but no Maya.

Then I wanted to slow down the time, make it last longer so that Maya would arrive but she woudn’t. I sadly sat on my luggage trolley and watched the screen notification turn to “departed”. I had just missed my first flight.

I went to the Lion Air counter and told them that I had lost my wife. After the initial giggles one of them decided to be my assistant on this mission and took me to the first terminal where Maya was still waiting for me. She had thought that the plan would have changed because the terminals would have been far apart. It was the expensive taxi ride that had given her the idea that even if she took a taxi it wouldn’t arrive on time, although for me it didn’t take more than 5 minutes.

Sometimes, in times of crisis, accidents, or sudden loss of something, a weird sort of coolness takes over the emotions and tells one to stop. We didn’t talk. We knew it was very easy to start to argue and accuse each other for this situation. We sat and had a drink.

Now we had to find a way out of Indonesia before we ran out of visa within the next 2 days. Adam Air was fully grounded and all the stranded passengers have booked all the other tickets on other flights. It was practically impossible to find tickets to anywhere on the direction we wanted to go within 2 days. So we went back to the superstar of budget airlines and booked a flight by Air Asia back to Kuala Lumpur.

We wanted to travel all across Northern Borneo and Brunei and take a boat to Southern Philippines but it was not to happen. We ended up grounded in the heat of Kuala Lumpur and later flew to Philippines.