I had a strange dream last night. First I was watching a game of rugby which turned into a game of soccer where I was a striker on a minor club team up against a Premiership team. We were holding our own until the groundskeeper started spreading a thickening agent on the grass. This confused the Premier boys and allowed me to score the only goal of the match.
Once that was done we walked out of the stadium and into central London to find the wreckage of a score of airplanes scattered about. My two companions were commenting on how tragic these events from 6 months ago were. Walking past one plane, which had crashed under an archway between Nelson’s column and Buckingham palace, I told them I was on it at the time of the crash but had walked away unhurt. They barely registered the comment and yet kept on talking about the tragedy.
I landed and took-off from that airport last December. At the time I thought the airline, Garuda, and the airport was a bit of a joke but didn’t feel scared for my life. The flight from Jakarta to Yogyakarta was two hours late and a local just laughed and said “They come when they feel like it” when I asked if the plane was coming at all. He also mentioned they will wait around for passengers if there is not enough to fill the plane on time. Landing at Yogyakarta was like landing at a backwater airstrip with the international section of the airport closed down and some guys wheeling our bags on open trolleys to the airport building. The inflight food was different but nice, all sweet breads and nuts and I don’t remember there being a flight-safety presentation before take-off.
Terrible that 21 people died today and I hope it was nobody I met in my time there.
