The Melbourne to Singapore leg of my flight home is uneventful enough. We travel at night, touching down at Changi Airport at 5.30am Singapore time. The leg room is less spacious on this flight than on the Jakarta to Singapore flight two months earlier but with social distancing protocols in place, each passenger has a row of seats to themselves so it is possible to stretch out and get a few good hours sleep.
Changi Airport is like a ghost town, unlike the well-manned and highly orchestrated reception that awaited passengers when I flew in from Jakarta. This time no one is on hand to greet us or to direct onward travellers to the correct terminal. Still, quarantine-free travel is available to passengers flying in from Australia so there is little need for fanfare.
The transit train that normally operates between terminals is not operating and it’s a fifteen minute walk to the departure gate for my onward connection to Surabaya. It’s around 6am when I arrive and there is nowhere open to eat so I find somewhere to sit and settle in for a two hour wait for my next flight.
The Scoot flight to Surabaya is full, in stark contrast to the Singapore Airlines flight out of Melbourne. I’m surprised by this but it must please the airlines to know there are still some lucrative routes out there.
The Surabaya flight takes about two hours, followed by another two hours of navgating Indonesian officialdom and red tape. Although all the published information specifies that we will be taken to a dedicated quarantine hotel upon arrival, I’m asked to provide details of my chosen accommodation. It must be a common oversight as I’m presented with a folder of approved hotels offering rooms at varying price points.
I choose a mid-priced three star hotel close to the airport, which offers all meals and a swimming pool. When I arrived in Indonesia this time last year I was required to self isolate for 14 days. Now the Indonesian government has determined that five days is enough time to quarantine, although they do recommend isolating at home for a further fourteen days, a directive most Indonesians are sure to ignore.
After a further wait, I am eventually taken to an airport shuttle, where I am joined by a lovely Taiwanese gentleman, Mr Lu who like me, is married to an indonesian woman.
I spent a couple of nights in Surabaya en route from Yogyakarta to Bali over 30 years ago but as I take the shuttle to my hotel, nothing looks even remotely familiar.
The hotel I have chosen is small but neat. The room is spacious and looks out over the pool. Newly arrived guests must spend the first 24 hours in their room.
Each guest takes a PCR test on the first afternoon and if they return a negative result they are free to leave their room and make use of the hotel facilities and common areas. After a further test on the last day, guests are free to leave hotel quarantine assuming they produce a second negative result.
The city of Surabaya became a covid hot spot during the first wave of the pandemic in June last year, however new case numbers and deaths appear to have tapered off now substantially from the peak.
Social distancing is not a big problem at this hotel. The front lobby has three seating areas spaced well apart, the restaurant has a long, L- shaped design which opens on to a fairly large deck area overlooking the pool with further seating running the length of the pool.
Once I’m free to leave my room I spend a lot of my time sitting out by the pool reading and enjoying an occasional cold beer.
It gets busy during the evenings with large groups of people coming to eat. The holy month of Ramadam has just gotten underway and most Indonesians are now fasting every day so the evening meal is eagerly anticipated.
On my second night I can’t get a table to eat by the pool and so I return to my room to eat. The restaurant manager has made note of this and for the remainder of my stay a table by the pool is set aside for my use.
Mr Lu, the Taiwanese man I met on the shuttle bus, joins me on my third night and we compare notes on life under covid in Indonesia as well as in our home countries.
Mr Lu lives with his wife a couple of hours out of Surabaya. Together they run an orchard where they grow fruit varieties not normally found in Indonesia. Most of it is sold straight from their property so they have low overheads and steady income.
He has returned to Taiwan three times in the past twelve months. Quarantine requirements there are even stricter than in Australia but they have been one of the most successful countries in the world in containing the virus and limiting the spread of disease.
All people travelling to Taiwan must undergo hotel quarantine for two weeks followed by a further seven days at home. Only after they produce a negative test result at the end of home quarantine are they free to go about their business as usual.
Having undergone three two-week stints of quarantine/self-isolation, I am full of reverence for anyone who has had to do more.
Five days of hotel quarantine in Indonesia where I’m free to wander around the hotel and while away hours by the pool seems a little like cheating, though I’m not about to complain.
On the fifth day I take a final PCR test and the following morning, I’m free to check out. I head straight to the airport and board a flight to Lombok.
It’s a one and a half hour flight which flys right alongside the majestic Mt Agung, poking it’s nose out through the clouds over Bali. We’ve no sooner flown past Mt Agung than we are able to spot another volcanic peak rising up in the distance, Lombok’s Mt Rinjani. It’s a spectacular sight and a fascinating reminder of what a ancient, time-honoured landscape this island chain is.
But if the Scoot flight from Singapore to Surabaya was full, this Lion Air flight to Lombok is positively bursting at the seams. Given the covid problem that has afflicted the bustling port city of Surabaya, I’m surprised the government aren’t imposing tighter numbers.
The passenger sitting next to me is properly masked but a man sitting ahead of us is defying logic as well as the law. The cabin crew make no effort to rebuke him and it is left to the person sitting next to me to insist that he wear his face mask.
Dewi is waiting for me when I reach the arrival hall in Lombok but won’t let me embrace her until she has sprayed me liberally with hand sanitiser.
It’s good to know she cares.