This trip centred around going to the UK to attend my nephew’s wedding. I managed to snap up a cheap Air NZ fare to Bali flying during the first week of their seasonal operations which was highly discounted; I qualified for a further discount through my partner who works at the airline. Woohoo!
It made sense for me to explore parts of Indonesia which I hadn’t on the way to Kuching to see family. Indonesian Papua and Maluku had been on my mind for a while so this seemed like an opportune time.
I was lucky enough to score an upgrade to Air New Zealand’s Business Class without using any frequent flyer points but using a free “status” or recognition upgrade (which I have subsequently lost since I don’t travel with work anymore).
I sat next to Andy from Rotorua who works in Tembagapura, Papua. His specialty is in installing protection to cliffs in areas surrounding the copper mines and the townships. He had amazing photos of his work. He does have an interest in travel too and the photo show-and-tell was bi-directional. It made the flight go really quickly.
Also, the 9h30 flight was accomplished in only 8h which meant that we had only 3h15 between two full hot meals served by a very good crew.
While waiting for the loo, one of the crew chatted to me. She asked what I was doing in Bali and I explained that I was just transitting for a night to Papua. She didn’t really know where Indonesia was. I guess often in New Zealand, Bali is marketed like the Pacific Islands rather than Indonesia. Even one travel insurance brochure groups the Pacific and Bali together (rather than with Asia) but puts Indonesia in brackets after Bali. She didn’t really know that it was a big country and when she sought clarification, I had to clarify that it stretches from near Thailand to near PNG and Australia. And she wasn’t a young thing … obviously not very worldly with geography.