We’re back in Jakarta! Summer flew by, and then it was time to head home to Indonesia. Pandemic travel is not for the faint of heart, and so we had a few hoops to jump through. But we got to the airport with all documents in hand: passports, visas, vaccination records, negative RT-PCR test results, quarantine hotel reservation confirmations, and Indonesian health cards.
Travel was pretty easy overall. The planes were less than half full – especially the last leg flying into Jakarta. No surprise – Indonesia is number one on the world COVID-19 infection rates, and so people aren’t super stoked to travel here. The Jakarta airport was virtually empty. So surreal to go through these huge arrival halls set up for hundreds of people and be almost the only ones there. We got through all airport checkpoints (health check, test result check, immigration, customs, etc) and were in the cab headed for the quarantine hotel in under 40 minutes.
Our chosen quarantine hotel is the Shangri-La. It’s pretty swanky, and we feel lucky they upgraded us to a one-bedroom suite. We brought books to read and two laptops, plus I have my knitting and crochet and apps on my phone for HIIT and yoga. We’ve kept busy. But this is day 7 of 8, and some things are getting old. For example, we love that we can choose which food we get, but the choices aren’t limitless. Still, we are lucky we can stay here and it’s been a pretty easy week.
They came to our room this morning to do our second required PCR test. As long as it’s negative, we’re headed home in the morning. As stays go, despite being longer than what we did last year (three days at the Novotel) the food has been better so it has seemed nicer. Or maybe I’m just getting used to being indoors, finding things to keep me busy that don’t involve the outside world.
