What’s better than a free rock concert?

24^th. of May wake up with a thousand things to do, one of them, pack for Indonesia. Others include sell my car or give it away, apply for health insurance. I know some of these things won’t get done.

Kim has her own similar list. She may manage to finish hers.

Kim’s friend Mark kindly stores some of our boxes and drives us to the airport where we miraculously check in and send off the last mail. Then it’s into the machine that is modern travel. If we’re lucky it’ll spit us out alive on the other end.

Munich is crisp, clean and there is little activity. Frankfurt is where we board the long haul flight with a stop-over in Singapore. Crossing from one terminal to the next via sci-fi blue lit transit tunnel.

We board the 747-400 on time. Shiny, sleek, modern aluminum-skinned hi-tech transport taking us from the sterile, cool, silver grey, steel and glass halls of rainy Frankfurt, belching kerosene exhaust the entire way to land in dirty, noisy, chaotic, colorful, humid and hot Jakarta. This is not the time or place to explore the symbolism of taking such a polluting form of transportation in such a clean elegant package from western Europe to subtropical Asia but it lingers in my mind.

I manage to sleep most of the way which is rare. Singapore is a half hour stop and then it’s one more thundering take-off, over the sea to Jakarta. The terminal is low-ceilinged, decorated with Indonesian art. The cleaner in the toilets turns on the tap and hands me a paper towel before asking for a tip. All I have is change from Singapore. He doesn’t look impressed.

The line for Immigration is long but we are quickly processed. All of our luggage is already on the baggage belt and we throw it onto carts. We get through security with a cursory check of the laptop.

In the letter from Karmele did it say go to the left or the right? I think it must have been right. To the right there is a huge crowd of people, some with signs for passengers expecting pick-up. I glance to the left. A just as big a crowd there. I’m pretty sure it was right so we go right. Right was wrong. No one there. I walk back through and take a look at the crowd to the left. I don’t see any International Animal Rescue signs or anything with Kim or my name on it. We go upstairs to go to an internet café to find Karmele’s number. She says there are people waiting to pick us up and they’ll meet us at McDonald’s.

Gunowan, Asman and one other are smiling at the entrance and we take off through the airport crowd. People are smiling, frowning, reacting. Children are especially curious, grinning and waving. It’s noisy, chaotic, though not so chaotic as it might be. I film for a minute or two but it’s dark as we enter the parking lot and I think it’ll be better to film once I know people a little better. The sun goes down around 5:30 in the evening here.

The drive through darkened Jakarta is surreal. The city is huge. Skyscrapers with company names glowing, gigantic billboards, hotels and high rises in the smoky distance, insane drivers and crawling traffic all make for a numbing impression. After a little friendly chat we sit in silence for a while and then it’s hard to keep my head up.

It takes a long time to leave Jakarta and there seems to be little gap between the city of Jakarta and the city of Bogor. To the left Gunowan points out the botanical garden and the president’s palace, which is full of deer, apparently a non-indigenous kind.

We climb up in to the mountains. First we drive through twisting roads which narrow and then it’s onto a small, single lane paved track and then we arrive at the gates of the I.A.R. Indonesia guest quarters. The cook, Ibu Oti has left some great food for us which we wake up long enough to eat. Then we spread the mosquito netting and surrender to jet-lag, with a tree frog concert for a lullaby.

So what’s better than a free rock concert?

A tree frog concert!