Having already endured a couple of reschedules, I was paged to attend the Garuda desk at Perth Airport for important information. When I presented myself at the desk, they sombrely informed me that my seat had been reallocated meaning that I would not be sitting alongside Ty and Gary for the trip. I resigned myself to this and accepted the replacement boarding pass, only to note that it was for precisely the same seat as the one I was already holding. Bizarre, random, Garuda.
The Jakarta to Amsterdam leg was uneventful - really really uneventful - because the inflight entertainment system was offline. After the 6th assurance of 'just ten more minutes and it will be fixed' we all resigned ourselves to ipods, etc. Indeed, the system remained stubbornly inoperable for the remainder of the 17hr flight.
Fortunately, the technical and administrative inconveniences were more than compensated by the lovely and gentle Garuda inflight crew. Even dealing with one irate and entirely unreasonable customer, they remained calm, smiling, and very hospitable.
The landscape outside is barren in the extreme, and a stark reminder of the riding conditions we will encounter early next week.
