Case of the missing luggage

Last weekend I went back to Australia for the funeral of my grandmother. Whilst this post won’t go into much detail of the trip, it was a very sad weekend and I’m glad I was there.  The fleeting trip home provided closure for myself following the passing of my gran, as living away from home the news didn’t really feel ‘real’ until I was home and saw my family. I did feel a little home sick not only whilst I was there and but also upon returning. I loved the brief taste of LUXURY – like water every time I turned on the tap, being able to flush toilet paper, consistent hot water and water pressure, and a full uninterrupted nights sleep –  it allowed me to take another look at my reasons for being here and reassured me that everything is still the same as it was when we left.

As the title of this post suggests, my luggage had a great holiday over the last few days. It arrived safe and sound in Sydney flying with Garuda, and it was in one piece when I arrived in KL with Malaysian Airlines. Air Asia however provided my luggage with a now even more impressive passport than my own. I have to say upfront, and to give further context, because the change over from my Sydney-KL flight with my KL-Bandung flight was slim,  I paid for Air Asia’s ‘Red Carpet’ service which allows passengers to skip all the security and immigration lines at the airport and a ‘priority’ luggage service. I soon came to know this ‘priority’ service wasn’t the definition of ‘priority’ that I am familiar with.

On arrival to Bandung, I swiftly disembarked the Air Asia flight and proceeded with no problems through immigration and then to collect my bags. I expected my bag to come through first, being priority, however I waited until the very last bag came through – and still no bag. That was when the emotions set in – after about 14 hours travel I wasn’t in the mood to a) have my luggage lost or b) deal with the complexities of Indonesian process. Air Asia’s immediate response on finding out my luggage was lost was, “Come this way missus, we will fill out a report for you to take”. My aggravated and teary response was, “I don’t want a report, I want my bag”. This directness is very ‘un-Indonesian’ and I, looking back at the situation, think Martin the Air Asia officer dealt with my situation pretty well. We left empty handed and then the wait for news of my bag began. Two and a half days later I’m now aware it went from KL on a flight to Guangzou, China, then onto Laos, back to KL and onward to Bandung.

The story of collecting my bags was just as much an adventure I received the call from Air Asia yesterday that I had to go to the airport to collect my bags. I had bought back 2 bottles of Australia wine and the limit for duty-free alcohol is 1L per person. I was requested to go to the airport and allow customs to open my bag to ‘destroy’ the second bottle. I raced my way to the airport, thinking the worst – that they’d confiscate my 2010 Taylors Jaraman Shiraz!.

The airport arrival area where I was taken to get my bag was empty and there was just me and half a dozen customs and security guards. I began speaking to the main customs officer who was a young  Indonesian man with a little bit of an attitude. I began my plea that I didn’t know about the 1 litre rule and the second bottle was a ‘gift’ for my ‘husband’, however whilst I didn’t originally know this, when the customs officer waved the customs duty form at me, I noticed that the form doesn’t say you can’t take in more than 1 litre of alcohol, it simply states that you can only bring in 1 litre duty free. So the dispute changed from me pleading that the second bottle was a gift for my darling husband to being about the form’s wording and that I requested to pay the duty or excess on the additional bottle. I explained I wanted to pay the duty on the amount of wine above 1 litre, but there is no way to do this at Bandung Airport. The customs officer didn’t quite know what to do with this determined, pissed off Australian woman and wanted to save face among this colleagues  Eventually, he allowed me to take the 2 bottles – just this once. And I’ve learnt my lesson both not to take 2 bottles of wine through Bandung International Airport, and not to use Air Asia’s priority red carpet service.

We’re headed back to Australia again in 2 weeks for a wedding of some close friends of ours. Luckily we’re coming back to Indo via Jakarta and I won’t run the risk of bumping into the same customs officer.

Bec xx