Jakarta Indonesia

Friday I was supposed to be on the 10:20 am Garuda Air flight from Banda Aceh to Jakarta but they moved me to the doomed 11:30am flight which arrived in Jakarta about 6 hours late, and I of course missed my 830 departure to Columbo....Garuda Air is the most incompetent bunch of idiots, they really messed me over, the next flight to Columbo is Sunday and they refuse to pay to get me there sooner....I spent all last night at the airport and returned there this morning at 5 am only to meet frustration with their inept staff....Tell everyone you know to stay away from Garuda Air, they suck ! I now have lost 2 days of shooting in Sri Lanka and I guess I missed a bunch of great photo ops in Banda Aceh..The mosques full of people praying and mourning the victims....darn, I should have stayed.....Cooling my heels for 2 days in Jakarta is a drag.

I was insistent enough to make them pick up my hotel for both nights and the meals, but upgraded myself to an internet equipped room for an extra 20 bucks so that I could do email and check on news, and try and set up a hotel for my arrival in columbo tomorrow night.....Did watch an Indonesian program on the tsunami entitled, "Badai Pasti Berlalu" running virtually 24/7 with stories, video and photos about the tsunami, it had some incredible scenes filmed by amateurs, one in particular of a family filming from the second floor balcony of their home in what was probably a Ulee Lhehue or Lhoknga neighborhood. The women were screaming, crying and praying, not knowing if their house would collapse or another bigger wave would come. From what they could see happening around them, they must have thought they were going to die !

Well, heck.....Three days to get from Banda Aceh to Columbo...Totally unbelievable...

Anyway, I will likely be on the computer all day...It is 1130 am on Saturday right now, so other than lunch and dinner I will be here in my roon at the Sahid Jaya hotel in Jakarta...It's pretty nice...The damn place they put me up in last night looked good, but there were mosquitoes that fed on me all night.....What a drag !