Onto Indonesia

Even before today started, we knew it would be alot.

We woke up at 7am in hopes of packing, wating breakfast and getting our grab at 8. Two of those three things happened. We were a bit early(security is minimal, especially for domestic) and hadn't eaten so we stopped in the lounge for some breakfast and were on our way!

We landed in Kuala Lumpur. Our mission, to get some type of genuine handicraft for "the shelf" had not been met. We had several hours before our next flight to yogyakarta so we went shopping. What we didnt realize is that we were at the satelite airport and there was like 4 shopping malls at the other mall. Either way, we decided on a pewter monkey. We struggled with this shelf purchase because we found that there was not a ton of "Malaysian crafts".  Lile the culture and its people; there were Indians and Chinese, there was Hindu and Muslims, there was no Malay. This is also why we waited so long(that and I have acute anxiety around excess luggage fees).

We found a way, via bus to get to the main terminal. It was humongous. Store after store, the building was gigantic. We still had over an hour before we could check in, so we went to one of the four lounges that my card gets me access to(2 of which were "landside").  We ate lunch, and relaxed.

Then it just kept happening.  We wound up getting charged like $60 for extra luggage(we instead took stuff out of our bag, ALWAYS HAVE A SPARE FOLDABLE BAG JIST IN CASE).  Then we had to wait in a forever line at immigration with no air conditioning. A man behind me kept trying to look over my shoulder, get in front of me etc.  Joe and I both started to loose our cool. (We know its cultural and not all cultures have queuing or personal space as corner stones as the ones we grew up in, but it was hot and a long line and yes I realize how privileged I sound but we were cranky!)  We then were hoping to make it to our third lounge of the day(yes, still noticing the massive priviledge) but the guy told us we shouldn't come through even though we had over an hour and we may have taken it out a little on the messenger(and while I try most days, did not do anything to counter white lady stereotypes today...). 

Turns out he was right.  Security plus the walk alone was more than half an hour. After we each went to the bathroom so the other could watch our stuff, they were announcing preboarding.  The flight was uneventful. Long, and no leg room. The surprising thing upon landing was that we were in a different timezone than both Malaysia and Bali(even though they are the same and where we landed was kinda right in the middle longitudinally.

We had to walk a bit out of the airport to catch a grav.  Within seconds we were on the street(the airport in general was rather rudimentary for the fact that this is the second most visited tourist destination in Indonesia-it is however the third most visited airport in Java(one of many islands, but one of the larger ones) by volume, so there you have it.

We paid the equivalent of $4 for a 40 minute ride to the hotel. We ate a western diner at the hotel and called it a night. We arrived too late to explore.