A flight to nowhere is being touted as a new experience, but long ago, before it became fashionable, or a means of rescuing a dying aviation industry, my family and I went on a flight to nowhere, quite by chance.
My father had passed away in late September, 2009, and it had been quite a stressful experience for me, traveling up and down from Singapore to KL while he lay in a coma brought on by a heart attack. After a month of being comatose, he passed away, and I was deeply saddened by his passing. A plan was hatched to have a family getaway, and so all 6 of us, including Dad in those days, were going to go somewhere and have a lovely holiday together.
I’ve always been the one to sort out the itinerary and find accommodation etc on family holidays, and so after some research, I proposed that we would go to Manado, in Sulawesi, for a week of seaside fun, volcanic beaches, and lots of boat rides with some diving and snorkelling tossed in. Everyone loved the idea, so I hunted down accommodation and found flights. There were two options for flying to Manado. Silkair direct, or Air Asia via KL. Silkair was fully booked, apparently, since this was for the December period, so we had to choose Air Asia. How to get to KL? We decided to choose the road trip option because momentarily we lost our sanity and imagined that being trapped in a car with 4 kids for 4-5 hours was a perfect way to start a holiday. We hired a familiar Singapore-KL private hire MPV 7 seater taxi service to drive us from our house in Singapore to a hotel next to the airport, and when the day came, we set off happily with lots of snacks and sleepy kids aged 13, 12, 7 and 6. Holidays! Woohoo!
After a rather tiring ride with little fights erupting amongst the kids, we made it to KL. Not too sure how many times I reminded myself that “If I had wanted quiet I should have had goldfish”, or “Now I know why some wild animals eat their young” and other pithy sayings that came to mind. We had survived the road trip enclosed in a small tin can. Next stage was being enclosed in a bigger tin can, an aeroplane. And then… the open sea! We can do this!
Early the next morning we were at the budget airlines terminal to get on our flight and we were all excited. This was our first Air Asia flight together ever, being loyal SQ fans, at least I was, and I told myself not to be a snob. After all, so many others have extolled the virtues of budget airlines, and so I decided to keep an open mind, and enjoy the experience. We cleared immigration, had our passports stamped, and happily walked across the tarmac, which the kids found very charming though it ruined my hair which got whipped about in a gale. But who cares about their hair when they are off on a seaside adventure in a new destination yet unexplored with the promise of buckets of fun in the sun and sea?
We sat down, the plane took off, and my lovely family was enjoying themselves playing card games, and buying food to eat, and generally just having fun. I noticed eventually, towards the tail end of our 4 hour flight, that there was a lot of turbulence, and there was a storm raging outside. My heart sank when the Captain came on the intercom to say that due to a bad thunderstorm we could not land at Manado, and Air Asia HQ in KL had instructed him to land in Balikpapan, Kalimantan (Borneo). And so we found ourselves headed to Balikpapan, in a thunderstorm in a trembling tin can of rattling nuts and bolts held together by the best intentions of a pilot who sounded like he’d been drinking something stronger than tea since morning. As we approached Balikpapan airport, I looked out the window, thinking that this was likely to be my first and last visit, and all I saw were a scattering of blue roofed houses and a mosque almost swallowed by miles of rainforest in all directions, and then we were on the ground.
We were not allowed to leave the plane, and refuelling or filling of water tanks etc began while we sat there hoping the weather would clear over Manado. I told the kids to buy and eat food, because, “I don’t know where your next meal is coming from!” and supplies were limited onboard, so we all ate the infamous Air Asia nasi lemak, and bought water and entertained ourselves as time dragged on.
Armed men came onboard, walked through the plane and left, presumably conducting security checks. Luckily, we had our best nonterrorist faces on, and I had a Malaysian passport then which in the jungles of Borneo might be looked upon with a more neighbourly glance than a Singaporean passport, one hoped. The pilot came on again after almost three hours to tell us that HQ in KL, the powers that be, would give them further instructions and we had to be patient. Sadly, this announcement had the opposite effect, as an Indonesian man at the front of the plane then decided that he would not be patient, and he began standing up and shouting at no one in particular.
Apparently, Pakcik was on his way to his daughter’s wedding which was to be held the next day, he had to get to Manado, and he wanted to get off the plane and find alternative means of getting there in time for the wedding, even if he had to take a boat across the stormy seas if necessary, etc. A stewardess tried explaining to him that nobody could disembark, but he refused to listen, and got even more agitated. This went on for over an hour, with him berating the airlines, complaining loudly and generally causing a commotion in a corner. The rest of us watched this drama unfold, hoping he wouldn’t go completely mad and attack anyone and whether he understood that an aeroplane, while seeming like a bus service, isn’t always like a bus on the ground or in the air. You can’t just get off whenever you want to, unfortunately.
The pilot then piped up again, sounding like he had downed a bottle of whiskey in the cockpit, and told us that HQ in KL had informed him that it was a complete no go for Manado due to terrible weather and we had to head back to KL. Air Asia promised hot meals, and something vague about an hotel stay overnight and made it all sound peachy. There was a collective groan that went through the entire plane, except for Pakcik, who decided that this was too much to bear and he shouted loudly. The crew tried calming him down, but he wouldn’t listen, complaining about whether Air Asia would compensate him for his losses etc. The crew said that we could not take off for KL unless everyone was seated, a not very subtle hint that one single Pakcik was keeping us trapped on the tarmac in Balikpapan. The pilot asked everyone to sit down and buckle up, but still Pakcik would not sit down.
By now it had been almost 5 hours of sitting in a plane in the middle of darkest Borneo with a handful of houses and a mosque for company. The Indonesian government had not yet decided to relocate their capital to east Kalimantan in 2009, and it was simply a pit stop that might have served us well if we were David Attenborough and entourage off to film wildlife in the rainforests. Instead, we were just a family of 6 trying to go for a nice holiday to get over death and loss and sadness, and Pakcik was in the way. And so I did what any mother would do, I talked to Pakcik.
I got up, walked to the front of the plane and very kindly, but in no uncertain terms, told Pakcik, in my best Malay, that while I understood his difficulties, and I was very sorry for his sufferings, he really had to sit down so we could take off, especially because some of us had multiple children on this flight, I myself had FOUR children, and we had all eaten everything up and run out of water, the kids were tired, I was tired, and I really wanted to get back to KL, and the longer he delayed us, the later he would be to his daughter’s wedding, and could he kindly sit down and help us all, please?
Pakcik, to his credit, looked sheepish, and almost apologetic. Unfortunately, a young man came up at that moment and told Pakcik to stop being so selfish and sit down quickly, and Pakcik glared at him and told him to shut up. But then he looked at me, and my kids and he sat down. I thanked him, and made my way back to my seat, while some kind souls clapped in appreciation. For a fleeting moment I could have been Bruce Willis, saving a plane from a near hostage situation, but I was just appealing to the father in Pakcik. Nothing registers quite like a tired Mum with 4 kids to feed and a shortage of supplies onboard.
My kids, and possibly Dad, thought that Mum was over reacting because they were oblivious to the strains of being trapped on an airplane, and quite happily playing cards with Dad for 5 hours. True, the holiday had already begun, but we weren’t going to get in the air until Pakcik sat down, and nobody was getting through to him. How could I just sit there quietly? We then had a family meeting and decided to cancel our holiday in Manado since the weather was really bad, it just didn’t feel right, and perhaps we should just stay in KL with family.
When we landed, we were all herded into a lounge and told to wait while we were served chicken rice in a box with a bottle of water. I told my kids to eat, and “I don’t know where your next meal is coming from!” and so we ate the rice but not the chicken which was rather hard, and guzzled down the water. A man then decided he’d had enough waiting around, demanded answers, wanted to know what was happening and basically threw a fit. I remember that he had a French accent, and throwing a fit in a French accent is actually rather a charming scene to watch. Gratefully, I felt no need to walk up to him and say, “Monsieur, you are throwing a fit, you will please stop, I have multiple children and I do not wish to be trapped in here with you”, and so my family was saved from further embarrassment. The man calmed down when some nice ladies paid him some attention. Meanwhile, my motley crew was told that the bags were being transferred to another flight due to take off at 2am and since we didn’t want to carry on to Manado, our bags were being offloaded and could we please proceed to immigration. At this point, we discover that dear daughter’s favourite stuffed toy, a dog I think, had been left behind in the plane, and so Dad does a sprint, and rescues the toy, restoring a smile on a sweet girl’s face.
We head off to immigration, and a very nice officer looks at us, examines our passports and tells us we are free to exit. I look at him and I ask why our passports are not being stamped. He says, “Because you never go anywhere. You left KL airport, and now you come back to the same airport. So technically, you never leave KL.” I looked at him, and laughingly said, “Ah I see, I went to Balikpapan, and now I Balik Kampung!” We had a giggle and left, hoping this would not cause us any problems at immigration when we went back to Singapore. We got our luggage, trundled off to order a van to transport us, and parked ourselves at the nearest fast food joint in the airport. Was it a Macs or Burger King’s? Whichever it was, the kids were told to get some food, since “I don’t know where your next meal is coming from!” was the slogan for the day. They happily enjoyed themselves, we piled into a van and navigated our way to my brother’s house, getting lost twice in the dark. When we got there, we had to carry each child upstairs to bed because it was almost midnight, we’d been up and out of the house for over 16 hours, and they’d all fallen fast asleep. Playing cards for 5 hours in a plane and watching your Mum tell off a Pakcik, and being told to eat because no one was sure where their next meal was coming from can be very exhausting indeed.
And so we’ve been on a flight to nowhere, and lived to tell the tale. It was interesting, but not my cup of tea. I'm not going to jump on a flight to nowhere any time soon. Besides, without a Pakcik on the verge of going amok, without a Mum standing up and doing the right thing, without a boozy pilot, without a Frenchman falling apart at the seams, and without 4 young kids eating everything in sight, how dull would it be to just go round in a circle in a tin can? :)
Thanks for reading,
Pav
