Oh Garuda, Merpati

A few days off, friends from Germany in town, a nice hotel booked in Lombok -- what more do you want? That was how the four of us felt when we left our house on Oct. 5, at 6 a.m. to catch the 8 a.m. Garuda flight to Surabaya and to proceed from there with Merpati to Lombok.

Upon arrival at the airport, we were told the flight was canceled. We were given no explanation. We checked in for another flight at 10:30 a.m. that would still enable us to catch the 1 p.m. Merpati to Mataram.

Garuda later announced the delay of our substitute flight and we finally boarded the aircraft after five hours at the airport.

Upon arrival in Surabaya, we got our Merpati boarding passes and had just enough time to wave our flight to Mataram goodbye as it was obviously not possible for the plane to wait the few minutes for the Garuda connection.

There was the 3:30 p.m. flight to Mataram, but right on time there was another delay announcement, followed by similar ones till 6 p.m. Then even Merpati, just like the waiting passengers (many of them tourists from Europe), finally knew -- or confessed -- that they were not going to fly anywhere. Reason: None.

Everyone was transferred in a Merpati bus, which had left its suspension in a pothole a long time ago, to a hotel in Surabaya -- the Delta Permai -- conveniently close to the airport.

As for us, after 10 hours in airports, we passed on the offer to make use of the flea hostel and instead took a taxi to the Shangri La hotel where the excellent service and the very nice atmosphere compensated for a lot endured so far.

Right on time on Oct. 6, we arrived at the Surabaya airport again, got new boarding passes from Merpati combined with the next announcement that the flight would be delayed. After approximately two hours there was a plane flying to Mataram.

So after 30 odd hours, we arrived at the beautiful Senggigi Sheraton which was constantly kept abreast by phone about our ordeal. We found not only that, but the extremely pleasant surprise of an upgrade into one of the beach villas -- thanks a million.

Having smartened, we went to the airport on the morning of our departure day to get the boarding passes for the evening 6 p.m. flight back to Surabaya, which was no problem. The question of which hotel we were staying did not alarm us at the time.

Strolling through the hotel lobby at 3:30 p.m. the reception staff informed me that Merpati had changed the flight to 5 p.m. and not to Surabaya (that was canceled) but to Denpasar and that we should be at the airport by 4 p.m.

As it turned out, however, we were a bit hasty as the flight was delayed by about one hour.

Upon arrival in Denpasar, we got new boarding passes in a flash to take the 7 p.m. Garuda flight back to Jakarta and we even appreciated that we might be back home ahead of our original schedule. We were then informed that the flight, well, guess yourselves...

We finally arrived in Jakarta about 8:30 p.m. (don't forget the time difference), all rested, relaxed and in need of another vacation.

ROLAND WOEHRLE

Jakarta