My flight from Dubai was almost three hours late into Jakarta, so I was despondent about my chances of getting to Yogyakarta that evening. I hurried off the aircraft and up the airbridge, looking for an Emirates ground representative. A man and woman from Emirates were waiting, the man displaying a board with the names of the connecting passengers, including mine. He surprised me by saying "The Yogyakarta flight is delayed", implying I might get to my destination that night after all. Since I was intending to purchase my visa on arrival, he told me to do so and he would meet me afterwards, as he hadn't yet 'collected' all his passengers. I followed the marked route to where a short queue led to two payment kiosks. 25 dollars US procured me a receipt which I then presented at the visa kiosk adjacent, where a girl stuck a self-adhesive visa in my passport and validated it. This part of the process was painless and accompanied by a lot of smiling which relaxed me a little.
I then entered the immigration hall where a few hundred people were waiting in a series of noisy queues. I joined the nearest line, wondering how long the process would take. Shortly, the Emirates representative appeared, crossed through all the queues and directed me through an immigration by-pass lane to wait with the other passengers he'd collected whilst he had all our passports validated on the special "Aircrew and V.I.P. lane". Then, he set off at a pace I had difficulty matching as he threaded his way through the various passenger halls. Eventually, we arrived at the Garuda check-in counters and I was issued with a boarding pass with 20 minutes in hand before the boarding time. Since my checked-in baggage had, to my surprise, been checked through to Yogyakarta at London I kept asking if my luggage would arrive with me. At first, I was given reassurances then suddenly he took my luggage receipt and sent his colleague to locate the bag. However, a series of radio messages brought the news that my bag could not be located. He cheerfully reassured me that the bag would at Yogyakarta airport by 7.00 a.m. the following day. Since the bag was currently lost and we could not even be certain it had made the first transfer at Dubai, I didn't share his confidence but there was no more I could do so I thanked the Emirates man and made my way to gate F4 for the Garuda flight.
At the gate, I was a bit worried by the young man from Garuda saying I wanted gate F3 and I pointed out that my boarding pass stated 'F4' but I made my way across to F3 where a sign said 'Yogyakarta' (without a flight number) and a lot of passengers were waiting. The girl there assured me I was in the right place. After ten minutes or so, I became a bit concerned - none of the waiting passengers had moved but a lot of people were appearing from one passage and going down what I presumed was the access to our aircraft. I asked another girl who said "No - you want gate F4". I gritted my teeth and went back to gate F4 where a different person confirmed I was in the right place and should board straight away. When I entered the aircraft, fortunately the hint of sarcasm in my voice as I asked if the flight was really going to Yogyakarta was lost on the cabin staff who were unfailingly courteous. The business cabin had 12 seats but only two were occupied on this flight. Long after the 8.00 p.m. announced departure time, Economy passengers were boarding and it was about 20:20 when the door was closed.
The push-back was quite exciting. We were propelled tail-first by a tug coupled to the nose-wheel in the usual way. But we were propelled over 300 yards on a curving taxiway at a higher speed than I remember experiencing before. I was quite relieved when the tug disconnected and we continued our taxiing nose first using our own power! Soon we came to a stand, then moved on a bit, then stopped. About ten aircraft arrived, half on what was to be our runway (25R), the other half on the parallel runway (25L). It was around 20:45 when we finally took off and the Captain announced that the journey should take 50 minutes. A simple but delicious snack meal, a Coca Cola and a cup of tea more-or-less restored my good humour. I normally carry some necessities in my hand baggage to cater for missing luggage but the lack of firm knowledge was a bit unsettling. In addition, with the Garuda flight being over 3 hours late into Yogyakarta, I could not be sure that I would be met.
In the event, guide, driver and car were waiting. I was told that this sort of delay is fairly common. We agreed that we would follow up on the luggage and my guide directed me to the office of the appropriate man. He took details and then located a printed message he'd received stating that the bag had not tranferred at Dubai (as I feared) but would be at Yogyakarta airport for ten o'clock the following day. My guide made arrangements for the bag to be collected and taken to my hotel for the second night - Joglo Plawang. After making these arrangements it was about 10:30 p.m. when we left a by-now deserted airport for the one-hour drive to my hotel for one night - the 'Saraswati' near Borobudur. I had no trouble getting to sleep when I finally got to bed!
