Indonesia....at last!

I'm happy to say I arrived in Indonesia yesterday!  It was a long 2 day journey.  On Tuesday we were supposed to get a bad snowstorm in Raleigh so I took an earlier flight to make sure I got out of town before the storm.  That meant that the Tuesday morning I had planned to relax and get my packing in order was shot - so I was in a bit of a rush to get out the door.   So much for a relaxing morning.

This was my journey:

• 4 hours waiting in the Raleigh airport
• 1 1/2 hour flight from Raleigh to JFK
• 8 hour layover in JFK
• 15 1/2 hour flight from JFK to Hong Kong
• 4 hour layover in Hong Kong
• 5 hour flight to Jakarta

The airport in Hong Kong

38 hours after I left my house in Raleigh I was in Jakarta.  I got some sleep on the plane(s) but nothing solid so was exhausted when I finally got here.  My driver was waiting for me at the airport and we navigated the crazy traffic to get the hotel.  I did manage to stay up until about 8pm last night (almost fell asleep waiting for room service for dinner) then took some melatonin and had a great night of sleep. I was awoken once or twice by what I thought were gunshots but learned this morning that it was fireworks from the start of the Chinese New Years celebrations.

The view from my hotel room in Jakarta

This morning I met up with one of our group leaders for breakfast in the hotel, which was nice.  It was an amazing breakfast spread.  I heard that the last CSC team that went to Indonesia all got sick from the food so I am trying to be careful, but our team leader from the Phillippines said that even she gets sick in Indonesia - so it's probably only a matter of time.  I did bring enough probiotics to get me through the next 7 weeks so hopefully they will help a little bit.  I can guarantee that if I don't get sick from the food I will get motion sick from the erratic taxi drivers at some point.  Ahhh this will be quite a journey.

Most of my team will be arriving this afternoon and we're planning on meeting for dinner at a local restaurant this evening. Until then I am going to relax, maybe take a walk around outside of the hotel, and check out the pool here which is supposed to be top notch.  I'll be living out of my bag for the next 2 nights because we're heading to Yogyakarta on Sunday and I don't want to have to repack.