Screwed By The Aussies

So here it is, 12:45 am and I’m sitting here in Bali writing this damn blog instead of on a plane to New Zealand and Fiji and that line from the novel, “The God of Small Things” keeps running through my mind…that part about how it’s amazing how everything can change in an instant. One minute you’re in line to check in for your flight at the airport and the next minute all your plans have been shat on in a supreme fashion. Let me try to keep calm for a minute and recap what we’ve just been through.

Everything seemed to be moving along fine at check in…a little slow but nothing out of the ordinary…and then, BAM! “I’m sorry. But Australia has not given you clearance to fly in to Brisbane. You don’t have a visa.” (all this directed towards Radka)
“Well that’s fine because we’re actually not going to Australia. We’re going to New Zealand.”
“Yes but citizens from the Czech Republic require a transit visa,” the ticket agent offered. You mean to sit on the f***ing runway for an hour, she needs a VISA?! “Yes. We can’t let you board this flight.”

And just like that, our world came crashing down. We tried in vain to explain to the less than sympathetic Garuda Indonesia staff that if we did not make the flight we would not make our flight to Fiji, scheduled to depart 5 hours after our arrival in Auckland. Because we had less than 24 hours to amend the Fiji ticket, we would lose $800 NZ. If Radka can’t get to New Zealand, she would have no way to make her flight home. Being that we were at the end of a 9-month trip, cash was not available for alternate ticketing. All this fell in deaf (and extremely dumb) ears.

“I suggest you go to the Australian Consulate tomorrow and try to apply for a transit visa.” Well…for one our flight is leaving NOW and 2) tomorrow is Saturday…and if you can’t figure it out, the day after is Sunday…all consulates closed. “And by the way…unfortunately, Monday is an Australian holiday,” we latter found out from a nice Australian immigration officer (what the hell she was doing in Denpasar, Bali I have no idea). Oh yeah….and my Indonesian visa expires tomorrow and being that it’s one of the new “1 month on arrival. Non-extendable” types, there didn’t appear many options. Radka, worrying I might be jailed for overstaying my visa (as is the case in Thailand) urged me just to get on the plane. Not a chance. We’ve been through too much on this trip to go out like that.

We sought the highest level representatives of Garuda Indonesia we could pin down…all of whom were of little help but more than willing to play down there position within the organization (“No he’s in charge…I’m just staff” “Not me…I don’t even work here.”) When pressed for help in reaching some sort of solution they had the brilliant idea of trying “to go to the Consulate tomorrow (didn’t I just tell this asshole tomorrow is Saturday?) and if you can get your visa, come back and speak to a ticket agent. Right…with a ticket that was valid for travel on July 10th?! And try to explain our story all over again to someone who has no idea what I’m talking about (and cares even less)? I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to sort us out.

“So who exactly do I talk to when I come back?”
“Just talk to Garuda,” smart guy number one offered.
“You mean the mythical Garuda? The half man, half bird from the Ramayana? He’s going to take care of us?! Fly Radka off to Auckland, non stop?”
Idiots. I was rapidly losing it by this point.
“Here’s what I think will happen when I come back….no one will have a clue what I’m talking about and I’ll politely be told to buy a new ticket. How a bout you go reissue this ticket for Tuesday night and we’ll do everything we can to get the transit visa.”
“Uhmm….I can try.”
“Well you better f***ing try hard.” I was screaming at this point.
“Ok. We’ll do it but you have to promise to try and get the transit visa.”
Are these people out of their minds? What the hell did they think we were going to do?

The tickets to Auckland where reissued. Calls were made to back home (east coast logistical support) and a saint of rep at Air New Zealand reissued our tickets for the 15th of June, against company policy, thus preventing us from pissing away the 800 bucks. Thank you Mom. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

So… I have the weekend to cool out and Tuesday, it’s off to Denpasar to see the nice people at the Australian consulate so I can lay it on as thick as possible about what’s at stake here. If you ever want to see either of us again, keep your fingers crossed.