Jakarta, Sunday, 1995-06-04 15:00 local (Z+7)
26 hours from the Raddison hotel at LAX to the Borobudur Hotel here—19.5 of them in the air. At least we had seats in business class, so it could have been worse. Actually, I feel pretty good considering. As soon as we got here I ran 5 times around the track (700 meters per circuit), laid in the sun for a bit at the pool, and now I'm trying to stave off sleep for a little longer. Once I hit that bed, that's it, and I want to sleep as close as possible to my scheduled 11:30 show time tomorrow. I'll probably wind up getting up in the middle of the night for a few hours and then going back to bed.
Got to see a little bit of a new place. They had fuel stops in Honolulu and Denpasar. Denpasar is the largest city on the island of Bali (and Bali is part of Indonesia). Though you can't tell much from an airport, I found Bali much more inviting than Jakarta. Apparently the tourists do as well judging by the number of duty free shops at the terminal there. I got off the airplane and walked around for about 45 minutes. It was a short 1.5 hour hop from Denpasar to Jakarta. Landed at Jakarta right about noon local.
Got off during the fuel stop at Honolulu as well, and it was a beautiful night (about 02:30 local). One of the engineers and I speculated as to whether we might be better off just pulling our stuff off the airplane and spending the rest of our lives on the beach in Hawaii. It was a crystal clear night, light soft breeze, stars out in abundance. Too bad life can't always be like those few moments.
Found out upon arrival in the hotel that Tower's last scheduled flight is the 10th, sooner that I had anticipated. If they stick with that schedule, I'll only have time for 2 round trips. I'm traveling light for the hot weather. Didn't bring my uniform coat, which means if I only get 2 round trips, they'll be able to use me after the 10th, and I may be into non-hot weather without my full uniform—a definite no-no. C.J., I may wind up having you send my coat to me via Fedex to someplace. We'll see what happens. If I get back through New York, I'll just pick up my sweater from your apartment, Mark, and get by with that.
However, one of the engineers said he's never seen the Hajj schedule end as planned yet, so maybe I'll be here longer, and then the airplanes have to be ferried back into Tower's regular system.
Well, I'm faded, so it's off to bed.
Terry