My watch now shows 0515 in the morning, indicating that my shift change is gonna come soon, at 0600. yet the clock in my laptop stubbornly shows 0315 still, giving me the sense that i live in two different worlds.
I do somehow live like in two different worlds. i'm currently working on an island near the far east side of indonesian archipelago. all my true being is here. but as my lappie connects me to my friends, my world, through the internet, my consciousness is dragged to different time zone and place, to where the time in my laptop applies, the beloved familiar western indonesia. i am yanked in and out of the two worlds whenever i have to change my focus on different things.
anyway, traveling to ambon several days ago had brought a lot of new things. i'll start from the beginning.
day H-2: the coordinator gave me a call, while i was sitting in my unbearably hot room, listening to the music, and working on some muscles (which regretfully i still don't have much to show). hhaha
as usual, his tone of speaking was annoyingly cheerful and high-pitched (one told me once that he even thought my coordinator was a girl when they were talking through the phone for the first time. huh!). "bla bla bla... Rudy, you're going to Ambon the day after tomorrow ya, i'll inform you about the flight...bla bla bla". okay, i thought, he had just ruined my day. the idea of going to ambon was not encouraging. i'd never been there, but the place was so isolated, so far away, that only a lost bird would end up there... hahahah, of course not! anyway, i lost the appetite to shop that day! which was a good thing, huh?! i spent enough! =p
day H-1: i found out my flight was gonna be at 0130 in the mid of the night. damn! what stupid moron would fly at such time of the day?!?!
day H: garuda plane didn't fly to ambon, so i had to take lion air in the freaking 0130 flight. lion air domestic flight meant i had to check in in terminal 1A in the airport.
the terminal was gloomy, all dark and kind of out of maintenance, but surprisingly active at 2300. a person came to me and asked if we could share the baggage, since he carried quite a lot. he quickly lost his hope on me once he tried to lift my baggage. pity him.. and pity me, since apparently my own baggage was overweight! damn, my lug was 16kg already (what the hell did i put inside?? let's see, G-string couldn't be that weighty right? :D) plus a box i carried for the job which weighted 6kg. damn, i tried to charm my way to the operator (quite a handsome boy... haahahha), and he gave me 50thou discount. hmmm, come to think of it, maybe he was more like pitying me than felt charmed by me. haaha..
anyhow, i went directly to the designated gate, hoping i would find some coffee shop to kill my time along the hall. alas, it was not terminal 2 anyway. all the shop's closed and not even a coffee shop in sight.
the waiting room was even darker and gloomier. some people had been waiting in there. a couple of teenagers sleeping on the chair and kidding to each other (i made a quick glances, no beautiful girls or handsome boys... not interested ahahaha). i made my way to the other waiting room, picked a chair near the far end and got my ipod out. there were also several men wearing cheap jackets waiting. not interested.
i assumed those were all the passengers going on the 0130 flight since like i said, what moron would fly at the time of the day. the god quickly showed that my thought was just nothing but a mere dust in his plan. just an hour before the flight, a mass of people began to flow into the waiting room. oh geez, two waiting rooms were soon full of people. i'm not the only moron, apparently! hahah. it turned out later that the plane was full, except for the exec class.
in all our boredom (everybody was bored and dulled, i guess), some were sleeping, staring at others (including me. it's interesting to see what people do when they're bored. u might stare to each other until someone gives up. try! ghawhahwa), listening to music, playing with their beloved ones (i did too, with my beloved ipod), chatting (some were noisy as hell), and so on.
Then suddenly came some people marching into the waiting room, which were the pilot, co-pilot, and the stewardesses. Gosh, they somehow were glowing in the gloom as they walked in, casting soft, fresh, and warmth light to the dull passengers. I bet every waking eyes were following them, as if greeting their idols. well, the stewardesses were little bit pretty. They flashed their slender thighs through the narrow slit of their gowns while walking, making some eyes flashed dazzlingly. I conclude that Lion Air's stewardesses were indeed better than Garuda's. Garuda's were pretty much all old and unjuicy. hahha
anyhow, the flight itself was a torture! it was hard to sleep since the plane's chair was damn straight and we couldn't do anything to lower it down. i had to slouch my body and put my head rest in a weird angle, giving me a pained neck with my every occasional waking up. damn, i hate everything about that night flight.
when i landed in ambon, my body was a little sore and i didn't even feel sleepy anymore but was just annoyed. damn. the ambonese airport was small, with many turns along the narrow hallway to get to the baggage claim. and the baggage rolling conveyor belt was short. by the time i got there, people had crowded the whole available section of the conveyor, from the tip to the tip. it was a mess of people with different clothings, belongings, hairstyles, ages, ethnicities, and so on. just like a mass of sand pulled over by a magnet bar they crowded the baggage conveyor. i gave up, i had to wait on the sofa (thank the building designer for this!) until some of them cleared out.
i got my baggage, went out and i had to anticipate another flight! but in the meantime, i noticed that the airport was facing mountainous geography, which was still covered with the greenness of forest. it was raining that day, a thin fog settled like a blanket over the top of the forest, giving it a cooly look. it somehow brought back the memory of mountains in Berastagi in N.Sumatra i used to visit sometimes. a chilly sensation went through my spine at the image of it, even though i was sure there was no wind passing by. i missed Berastagi.
Yes, i had to get to another flight afterwards. i checked myself in in the counter and waited. the plane came some hours later. it was horribly small, just an about 20 seaters plane. fyuh, this was my another first. it was like a toy plane if you compared it to the usual plane, looked like it was made entirely of paper and carton. i went inside and chose a seat. at least the seat was more comfy.
the plane then took off. the wings fluttered horribly or maybe it was just my imagination from my lack of sleep. as soon as it was in the air, though, i quickly decided to sleep, no matter how deep my curiosity was at that time to watch the scenery below. we were flying along the shore, i guess, and it would be a splendid scenery down there, seeing crystal blue water came contact to the sandy white shore and farther, the green virgin forest. it would be like a painting burst with color symphony and the splendidness harmony of nature. but i was to tired to care. i shut my eyes.
the heavy thud of the plane's wheel on the rocky landing lane woke me up. it was not even an airport, just a strip of lane made up of white rocks cutting through what appeared to be a field of bushes. a small shade consisted some working rooms and enough space for parking the plane laid on the side of the landing lane. i noticed that just like the landing lane in ambon airport, this one lane also led directly to the sea. i thought that if the plane fails to take off, at least it will fall on soft element like the sea water. but come to think of it, the water is not a soft element when it comes to crashing from high above or sideway friction. it has what they call the surface tension (i forget the scientific name. well, i think it is this hahah), which can make the water surface be as hard as steel. it what makes the stone leap when you throw it sideways across the surface of the water. but nevertheless, at least you are not hitting some hardy ground or plants. hmmm. not making sense.
we all gathered in the hangar-shade to wait for next means of transportation. i had given heads up that we would be riding on the back of a truck, with the wind tossing our heads and the sunlight hitting our face. it's not time for metaphor, but the thought of riding on the back of the truck for how many hours i couldn't know was not a comfortable idea. but what could i do? i just waited.
they unloaded our baggage, i took mine, and then the transport came. it was a minibus! thank god!
well, what came afterwards was not much to tell. we went to the nearby small town called bula to buy some supplies. the town was so small we hardly encountered any other vehicles. the ride to the rigsite was better than the one i had been in south sumatra. in south sumatra, all you could see was the coconut or rubber plantation. it was boresome. but here, you could enjoy the openness of the steppa, wide green field filled with chest high bushes and occasional trees. on the background, the mountain rose, with the trees meeting the low clouds, creating quite a relaxing scenery. it's not breathtaking, but somehow it comforts you down.
hm, overall, i really didn't enjoy the trip. but new experiences made it all worth to try. just don't do it too often, i say to myself...
