Tuesday, 3Oct06

Highlights: 3a.m. sahur with the family, 6:30 pick-up at Nina’s, nursing Nina back to health & flying back to Jakarta.

Today got going early- and just didn’t stop. I got a 2a.m. call from Yvette in Milwaukee (great to hear from her), ate “breakfast” of champions at 3:30 (rice, noodles, tempe & sweet tea), then arrived at Nina’s kos at 6:30 to take her to school.

I got a call 3 hours later to come pick Nina up from class early- she wasn’t feeling well.
She had been up all night talking to her mom & dad about the police thing last night, and me being upset about it,,, and apparently got no sleep. She felt weak & had cold chills, so I got her home & tucked her in bed. She was out cold.

I had to catch my plane in an hour, so I wrote a note to say goodbye & ran out the door.

It’s an hour flight to Jakarta, but getting home was more interesting than I was in the mood for.

Taxi services come in all shapes & sizes here in Indonesia, and often times, they more closely resemble random people moon-shining as cabbies, offering rides to anywhere, just to get some extra money. “Bluebird group” is the recommended taxi company to work with, and the one I usually use, but I wanted to see what this service was like.
Ok. So I got a ride home in a blue car with no meter.

The cab ride out to the airport was 175,000 Rp ($19). These guys waited until dropping me off at my house to ask for 250,000 Rp. Uh uh. No no no guys. You picked the wrong day to jerk me around.
“you’ll get 180,000 Rp and like it.” I was tired & in no mood for bargaining with them.