Welcome to Indonesia

I didn’t realize this journey would mean so much to me in personal growth. The people you meet on the road sometimes have a huge impact on your life. More about that in another post, and on to the beginning

With tired eyes we made our way to the street with our three boxes of motorcycle gear. It’s 4 a.m. The first leg of our flight to Jakarta, Indonesia leaves in a little over 3 hours from Orlando, Florida. Our Uber ride gets us to the airport without a delay. Now the fun begins.

United airlines has gone to a totally self check-in procedure. It may work well when it works, but this time it failed. The weather in Chicago delayed our flight by about 6 hours. Our connecting flight has long left by the time we arrive in Chicago. After standing in line for a long hour for customer service we are told the next flight leaves in 2 days. We finally managed to get booked to Los Angeles with connections to Tokyo, then on to Jakarta. In the process of the booking we asked about picking up our luggage or if it would follow us through. Come to find out they have no idea where our luggage even is. It has disappeared out of the system. At the hotel, Melanie waits on the phone for 1 and a half hours waiting for a representative. She is rudely told that they located the luggage and will be on our connecting flight in the morning….

The next day after arriving at Los Angeles, we checked to find out the location of our luggage. United Airlines doesn’t know. We are connecting through ANA airlines, a Japanese airline. Come to find out our luggage was never on the airplane to LAX. Melanie is back on the phone with United and after about 35 minutes the representative rudely hangs up on her. Still no clue as to the location of our luggage. The representatives at ANA airlines couldn’t have been more helpful. They’re on the phone and the keyboard searching, and finally find our luggage. Two pieces are in Chicago and one never left Orlando. What do we do now?

We are told that once we get to Jakarta to go to baggage claim, file a lost baggage claim and they would deliver it to us in a couple days. All is good for us to continue on our flights to Jakarta.

We arrive in Jakarta and there is a representative from the company waiting for us as we disembark. They tell us exactly where to go to file the claim. The people there are waiting for us and know exactly where our luggage is. Hooray. They would have the luggage delivered to the hotel by 9 a.m. the next morning, only 9 hours away. We are skeptical, but head to the meeting area to find William, who will take us to our hotel. William is the man who has helped us with everything here. We bought the motorcycle, a Bajaj Pulsar 220, from a man who lives in Hong Kong.

By 7 a.m. the following morning I receive a WhatsApp message. Our luggage has arrived at the airport and will soon be delivered to the hotel. All is perfect, or so we think. At about 11 a.m., still no luggage. We call and find out the luggage was delivered to the wrong hotel. No problem they say. They will pick it up and deliver it to the correct hotel. One hour later our luggage is there.

We we’ll spend the next couple days getting the bike prepared and getting in the right time zone.

Then, on to our journey, and what a journey this will be…

Cheers

2WANDRRs