Planes, trains and automobiles: A trip to the other side of the world

It's been a week since Alexander and I started our journey from the West to the East. We left L'Isle Jourdain last Saturday and drove to Poiters with his parents, where they dropped us off at the train station. We then took a train to Paris Montparnasse, from there we took a metro to Gare St. Lazare and then took the RER to Marly le Roi where Alexander's Aunt Veronique picked us up in her car to stay the night with her. We had a lovely night enjoying wine, which we knew would be hard to come by once we arrived in Indonesia, and cheese, which is abundant in France, but not so much in Indonesia.

On the flight to Colombo

Sunday morning, I enjoyed breakfast with a bowl of Earl Grey tea, drinking from a bowl is a French custom that I thoroughly approve of, and then we loaded up into the car again and Aunt Veronique drove us to Charles de Gaulle airport. We flew with Sri Lanka airlines, so after nearly ten hours we arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka from Paris on Monday morning. The Colombo airport supplied me with my first jolt of culture shock. When we arrived, there were no customs officers to ask us twenty questions, there were no immigration officers to stamp our passport, we literally just walked right into the airport and on to the gate to wait for our next flight. We had to wait for the gate to open, during which time I needed to use the toilet....and I wished I had used it on the airplane. The floor was covered in liquid that I hope was water, but assume was urine. There were no trash cans in the stalls (for the men reading, women need trash cans in stalls to take care of female issues). Next to the toilet there was a kind of hose used to wash your unmentionables, which I didn't utilize. To top it off, I heard another woman use the toilet and not wash her hands, but that unfortunately happens in every country.

View of Singapore gardens

Once our gate opened, we went through a security check, but we didn't have to take off our shoes. We then waited for a bus to take us to board our plane. The flight from Colombo to Singapore was actually much more comfortable than the first flight, but it was only three and a half hours. Arriving in Singapore's Changi International Airport was kind of like arriving to a tropical resort. It was hands down the most beautiful airport I've ever been to. We then took a taxi to get to our hotel. The taxi driver was incredibly friendly, and basically gave us a free tour of the "Garden City". We arrived at the hotel late Monday afternoon, and tried to explore a bit, even though we were completely exhausted. It was really amazing that we had traveled to the other side of the world, but we were surrounded by the English language and Western stores. It was an illustration of globalization at its finest.

All day Tuesday we continued to explore Singapore. Of course we had to have lunch at an English pub. However, the traditional fish and chips would have been to heavy, so we opted for the neo-traditional dish of Chicken Tikka Masala. Once we explored the majority of the city, we took the very modern Metro/Subway/Underground to pick up our luggage and then took a taxi back to the airport. Our flight to Jakarta was just over an hour. Once we arrived in Jakarta, I was worried about the bottle of wine I had in my bag. However, security and customs were once again not nearly as strict as Western standards. From the airport we were picked up and brought to our new apartment.

So after four days of planes, trains and automobiles, we finally arrived to our new home in Jakarta. It's hot, polluted and a tad small, but it's a place of our own. There's a vast array of cultural differences, but I will save those for later posts. For now, I'm happy to be settled...at least for the next year.