Don't Panic - Part 1

For 3 years my wife and I lived and worked in the Far East. We were initially based in Hong Kong and then, after 2 years, moved to Singapore. From the downright ridiculous to the downright dull, but that’s another story.

I was seconded by a UK company to work for the Swire Pacific Group, owners of Cathay Pacific Airways and other major South East Asian trading companies. A colleague (Matthew) and I were responsible for setting up and developing a Swire Pacific venture that was to distribute computer hardware and software products throughout the South East Asian regions – Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Brunei, and Sri Lanka. It was great fun.

We gradually worked through the list of territories and appointed agents who were to represent our products in each country. After a couple of months, next up was Indonesia. This was a country, at that time, with a population numbering over 155 million and covering a vast area of the globe.

Matthew and I scheduled a number of meetings with interested parties over a period of 4 days. All but one of the meetings was based in the capital Jakarta. Initially, the trip wasn’t too onerous. We stayed at the Borobudur Hotel in downtown Jakarta – a massive modern international hotel, with all the facilities and toys you would expect from a top establishment.

The general daily routine for us was to have a couple of meetings in the morning, back to the hotel for a bit of lunch, then laze around the Olympic size swimming where we were able to ogle the Cathay Pacific stewardesses as they relaxed during their stopovers whilst en route to other destinations. Later in the afternoon we might have a game of tennis, a drink at the poolside bar or gentle stroll through the hotel grounds. Cocktails and dinner in the evening rounded the day off. It was tough work but someone had to do it.

Our last meeting was scheduled with a company in the city of Bandung, which was about 1 hour from Jakarta by an internal flight out of the capital’s domestic airport. The plan was to arrive at the client’s office by about 10am, do the business, and be back in Jakarta by mid-afternoon.

Bandung was then a city of about 2 million people and was the main university city of Indonesia. It is situated to the south east of Jakarta up in the hills and surrounded by the jungle of West Java.

Matthew and I, suited and booted, took a cab from the hotel to the airport in time for the 8:30 flight. Jakarta is a mad place and the traffic is madder still – madder than a completely mad thing.

The cab was a bashed up old black and yellow number – a four door Nissan saloon. Well, it used to be a black and yellow, 4 door Nissan saloon. It was in fact a black and yellow Nissan saloon, with 2 rear doors and no front doors. The driver’s and front passenger’s doors had either fallen off, been stolen or surgically removed by someone who thought that it would enhance the appearance of the vehicle. The modifications could possibly have been an attempt to compensate for the lack of in-vehicle air-conditioning.

The cab driver was also slightly disconcerting. Apart from having seriously big hair which was too big for the vehicle, he looked a bit like Shrek without the green pallor, without the innocent charm but with big attitude. He spoke only in grunts and wore only shorts. His bare feet were huge and how he managed to work the pedals of the cab was a complete mystery. The steering wheel of the cab didn’t seem to have much of a relationship with the front wheels of the car and this rather unpredictable arrangement resulted in random lurches from one side of the road to the other, all the way to the airport.

After a mad journey, through a mad city in a mad cab, driven by a mad cabbie we were looking forward to a less than mad trip to Bandung and back. This was a forlorn hope, which probably qualified for the “Forlorn Hope of the Year Award”.

We arrived at the airport and gratefully bailed out of Shrek’s four-door/two-door Nissan.

The terminal building served both departures and arrivals and was basically a vast shed with no air-conditioning. It was crammed full of Indonesians, probably a couple of thousand people, all of whom were men and all of whom were all smoking Indonesian cigarettes.

Now, Indonesian ciggies are not normal cigarettes. Indonesia is/was the world’s biggest exporter of cloves. They have so many cloves that they can’t export them all, so they decided to stuff the leftovers into their cigarettes, presumably in an attempt to enhance the flavour in some way.

The net result of this adaptation of the humble fag is a foul, sickly sweet odour and the most hideous blue-grey coloured smog imaginable. So, you can probably imagine the result of a couple of thousand Indonesians, smoking cigs spiked with cloves in an enclosed space with no aircon; visibility was down to 10 yards, it was hot, humid and fetid.
We checked in and waited for the call for departure. By this stage I had the most horrendous headache, and I felt hyper-active. I was inhaling the smoke from 2,000 cigarettes and my head was about to explode. I was a living, wheezing, talking, walking, carbon footprint – by proxy.

Finally relief was at hand. Our flight was called and we made our way through the massed band of smokers to the air-side door of the terminal and on to a “bus”. It was in fact a canvas-covered military truck, with wooden benches along each side of the flat bed. A milk crate served as the steps up into the back of the vehicle. I as you might imagine, at this stage I was beginning to ponder what sort of aircraft was going be our mode of transport to Bandung.

The truck bounced us across the tarmac for about a quarter of a mile and we disembarked. There was about 8 passengers on the trip, Matthew, me and the rest were local chaps.

I was relieved to see that the plane looked like normal plane. It had wings, a fuselage, a tail fin and engines. In fact, the engines were jet engines – what a bonus! It was part of the Indonesian Garuda national airline and I found out later that it was a Fokker F28. I also found out later that the Fokker F28 had the third worst safety record in aviation history. Thank God I was ignorant of that little gem of information at the time.

We climbed the steps to aircraft and settled into our seats. The F28 could accommodate 50 people, so the 8 or so that was on our flight had plenty of room to spread out. However, Matthew and I decided to take up the seat in the front row right next to the entrance/exit door and right behind the cockpit door. This was a serious mistake.

As we waited for the flight and cabin crew to arrive, the plane was in the final stages of being refuelled by a couple of blokes operating a fuel tanker. I took note of the “Highly Inflammable” warning on the side of the tanker.

A few minutes later an Indonesian military jeep roared up to the plane in a cloud of dust and parked next to the fuel tanker. The driver of the jeep was an army type. In the back, were two chaps who were dressed like pilots and a very attractive girl dressed in traditional Indonesian garb – clearly our stewardess for the trip.

The stewardess climbed the steps first. The pilots didn’t immediately follow her, so I looked out the window and saw them having a natter with the fuel tanker operatives. I did a double-take. Said flight crew both had fags on, puffing smoke and flicking glowing ash on the floor, right next to the “Highly Inflammable” vehicle, which contained several thousand gallons of the “Highly Inflammable” stuff, which in turn was parked right next an aircraft which also contained a substantial amount of similarly combustible material and which also contained me and 7 other poor souls. If the lot had gone up, a big chunk of Jakarta would have gone with us.

The group on the ground seemed blissfully unaware of the impending doom but, after a few more minutes of what appeared to be blokey banter, the flight crew climbed the steps.

As they entered the aircraft, they were still puffing away on the cigs. However, at this stage I became less concerned about the potential fire hazard. I was suddenly more concerned about the fact that they looked no more than 13 years old! A couple of pre-pubescent teenagers were about to fly this Fokker and us to our fokking grave! I don’t have an objection to young chaps learning to fly, but I’d prefer not to be on board whilst they go through the motions.

Matthew and I looked at each other and it was clear that we were both thinking the same thing – let’s fake a heart attack and get taken off this Fokker! However, being stalwarts (or stupid) we remained calm (ish) and gave the two kids the benefit of the doubt. This was another mistake.

The fuel tanker departed the scene and the fly boys clambered into the cockpit – still smoking cloves.

As the lads prepared for take-off the cockpit door remained open. I thought; “This is cool!” We were seated just a few feet from the pilots and I had a great view of all the instruments, lights, buttons, switches and all that stuff – brilliant!

We started taxiing to the runway. The cockpit door was still open, and the lads were still puffing away. We got to the end of the runway ready for take-off. The cockpit door was still open, and the lads were still puffing away. All of a sudden the kid on the left slammed the throttle into the full-on position and we were off – hurtling down the tarmac, the plane was bouncing up and down like crazy. The cockpit door was still open – it was swinging on its hinges by this stage - and the lads were still puffing away.

Then, both the boys yanked their joy sticks backward in tandem and the nose of the Fokker lifted and, yes, the cockpit door was still swinging open, and the lads were still puffing away. However, pandemonium then broke out in the cockpit. The flight crew seemed unable to control the Fokker, it was slewing from side to side and up and down, lights were flashing, bells, bongs and whistles were going off in the cockpit, the chaps were using every limb in a seemingly desperate attempt to control the Fokker. I remember thinking, I wish they’d shut the fokking cockpit door.

The mayhem continued for what seemed ages, but eventually the boys got it all under control. We levelled off above the clouds and it all became quite normal. Well, normal apart from the fact that every passenger had crapped themselves, the stewardess was still in the crash position, praying, the cockpit was occupied by a couple of kids and the plane was full of smoke. Apart from that everything was spot on. Nothing much to complain about really.

The stewardess eventually realised that she wasn’t about to die, she stopped praying and then got to work, turned on the smile and the charm, served the coffee (more about Indonesian coffee later) and everybody’s heart rate returned to something approximating danger level.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, no one died from cardiac arrest, the skies were clear and blue and I had a great view through the cockpit window of – well, a blue sky. The trainee pilots were chattering and giggling away like old mates – probably having a bit of a laugh about the near death experience we had all endured earlier.

We then started to descend into Bandung – with the cockpit door still open. We were flying over dense jungle at this stage and as we got closer to Bandung the jungle began to thin out. I realised pretty soon that the reason the jungle had thinned out a bit was that the approach to Bandung airport (correction; airfield) – was littered with crashed aircraft.

Numerous old DC8s, DC9s and a few Fokkers had bought it over Bandung. As we got lower, I could make out the reason why these planes had met their end. There were holes in them. Big holes. Big bullet holes. The planes had been shot down by big guns which had fired big bullets!

I looked right and left, both sides of our approach to the airfield. It was the same story on each side. I counted about 20 downed aircraft before I gave up and averted my gaze forward through the cockpit window. This was another mistake.

As looked forward through the cockpit, I could see the perfectly straight runway – a strip of grey dissecting the green of the airfield and surrounding vegetation. A split second later I was staring at the side of a mountain. The plane had slewed to the right and was heading at what appeared to be 40 degrees to the landing strip.

Within moments the plane had slewed to the left and we appeared to be heading directly into the jungle. The plane then straightened and the runway was visible again for a brief moment. The boys up front were fighting the controls once more and it reminded me of Shrek’s Nissan lurching from side to side – only I didn’t feel that lucky this time.

This “entertainment” continued for too long in my opinion.

However, as the plane got lower the drama subsided and we finally plopped on to the tarmac, bounced back up again about 4 times and then gradually came to a halt. The kids taxied the Fokker up to the terminal (shed) and shut the old bird down. The collective relief of all on board was tangible.

The terminal/shed was empty save for about 5 soldiers wielding machine guns (maybe they used the incoming planes as target practice). There were no other people about other than the contents of the Fokker and a few airport workers reading newspapers and smoking cloves.

Matthew and I strolled through the shed and made our way to the taxi rank. Unfortunately, the taxi rank was devoid of taxis. In fact, not only was the taxi rank devoid of life, it appeared that the surrounding area had been evacuated – not a soul in sight. We waited for a while, and then wandered back into the shed, shouted “Taxi?” at someone who looked like an airport worker and then wandered back outside.

A couple of minutes later a brand spanking new Toyota taxi drew up. It was white, with a red interior, had all its doors in place and.... aircon! Bliss!

The driver wore proper clothes and shoes and could also drive! What a bonus! No drama!

I had a feeling bordering on serenity as we glided through the outskirts of Bandung. However, this feeling didn’t last for long.

We’d arranged to meet our contact at a cafe/restaurant and he would then take us to the client’s offices.

The drive into Bandung was unremarkable except for the fact that the place was deserted. Not a soul on the streets, not a car on the roads, other than our pristine Toyota. Not even a stray dog or cat. The other thing that struck me was that the place looked just like my home town. Not just my home town, but my home town street! We were driving through suburban streets which were lined with bungalows from 1950s Britain, albeit with verdant tropical plants and trees in amongst the rendered houses. Bournemouth should be twinned with Bandung! How bizarre!

We arrived at the cafe. It was on the corner of a fork of two suburban roads, Bournemouth-style bungalows and Bandung-style palm trees to east, west, south and north. The cafe was open but no one appeared to be awake, alive or at home. Matthew and I sat at one of the tables outside and waited for our contact to arrive. The atmosphere was weird. No people. No traffic. No bird song. No wind. No sound. Nothing. The only thing this scene lacked was tumbleweed rolling down the road and someone whistling the tune from a Spaghetti Western.

This all changed after about 15 minutes.

A distant rumble began to build to a roaring crescendo. A cloud of dust arrived at the roadside cafe. As the dust cloud settled it revealed the biggest, in your face, macho, Billy Big Bollocks of a 4x4 vee-hickle you could imagine. It was vast. Dark metallic grey, chroming plated everything, blacked out windows, and all the attitude of a rampant bull elephant. Even with the engine turned off it ticked, hissed, wheezed and smouldered like a ticking, hissing, wheezing and smouldering thing.

To be continued...