Off to Bali

I left Jakarta and flew to Bali on "Garuda" airlines. In one of those little things that throw you off, Indonesia has a dual security system. You go through a metal detector at the gate area but the actual gate is also an enclosed room and you go through it again. Like the anal american I am I wanted to be at the gate about 40 minutes ahead and discovered I was the only one there. Everyone, for some reason, likes to think their flight isn't "full" so I was low level happy about that.

But when it came time to board, Indonesians just appeared from everywhere. The plane was full. I was seated early. One good thing about Indonesia is that the anxiety of "Oh please don't let the huge guy sit next to me in the center isle" is greatly reduced. In fact, I think people looked at me that way.

Of course the logical reason behind the appearance is that they don't want to get to the gate and want to get up, walk around, and then have to go through gate security again. So they go into the enclosed gate at the same time boarding is taking place. This is a nice little cautionary about giving another culture advice -- you have to know all the little details of why people act as they do (logically at least within their systems of incentives). More serious comments on that and Indonesian campaigns later.