And back in Jakarta...

We've made it back to Jakarta, safe and sound--and back in the lap of luxury at Connie and Kasmin's house. Somehow the 7 or 8 hour trip from Sentani to Jakarta was much more pleasant in the day time. The "day trip of Indonesian airports" was far more enjoyable than the night time version! The airport shops were open and we had the opportunity to wander around. Also, it wasn't the middle of the night and we didn't feel like we should be rightfully sleeping...

On the flight from Makassar to Jakarta (the final of the 3 legs) they were showing this hilarious (I mean, it wasn't meant to be hilarious) Indonesian film about this Muslim Indonesian man studying in Egypt for a Master's degree and his romantic journey. There were 4 separate women who were in love with him (one of whom was not a Muslim) and eventually he marries this girl that he met in an incident on a bus or train or something. Well, then the other girls are heartbroken and go through various trials and drama in response to his marriage. One of them accuses him of rape and he ends up in an Egyptian prison. Another one goes into a coma (the non-Muslim one), and she's the only one whose testimony can save him from the death penalty, so his newly-pregnant wife comes up with this plan that her husband should marry her also (while she's in a coma) so that she'll come out of the coma and testify on behalf of her new husband to get him set free. Which of course magically transpires (it turns out she has a heart anomaly). So now there's the three of them living together, two Muslims, one not, trying to make a polygamous situation work. We get to this point of the film and the plane lands. Grace and I were mortified because we had invested nearly two hours of our lives into this film and were left without the satisfaction of knowing how it ended!

So this morning at breakfast we found out that one of the maids, Nur (the cute one with the great smile), has already seen the movie and she told us how it ends. In case you think you're going to watch this life-changing film, don't read the next couple of lines, because i'm going to tell you how it ends: Maria (the one with the heart condition), dies. Of course, this was really the only way that the film could have been resolved because it is truly illogical to think that a polygamous marriage of differing religions could ever be successful. And this means that the first wife could remember the second one fondly, instead of with resentment.

All righty...there's the breakdown on THAT amazing film...HAHA!

Healthwise, I'm doing much better. I was much better yesterday than I'd been in nearly a week. My fever seems to be gone and no more chills or headaches. But I'm having trouble catching my breath properly, so every time I do anything that winds me in even a minor fashion is a struggle because I can't take proper breaths. It's a little bit scary and I'm hoping that as I continue my anti-biotic regimen it too will clear up (it seems to be associated with the cough that I still have).

Yesterday after we arrived at Connie and Kasmin's, Kasmin took us around to see what we might be interested in doing on our last days in Indonesia. He took us to an AMAZING country club that had a pool shaped like a lagoon with a huge slide that twisted down into it from a hill top treehouse. I think I fell a little in love in that moment :) There was also this great little display of batik that Kasmin told us was of very good quality, so I bought several souvenir items there (as did the other girls). We toured the facilities a bit more, seeing the massage area (where you can get an hour long massage for 16 dollars and a haircut for 5) and then headed off to the mall.

We decided that we wanted to get pedicures, and there was the option of watching a movie and getting delicious frozen yogurt as well. Unfortunately, the pedicures were not as nice an experience as one might have hoped. Janine was freaking out a little bit that the tools were not being properly cleaned and they did weird things like crack all of Grace's toes. I also had wait an extra half hour to even have my pedicure begin! So we now have painted toes that cost 4 dollars, and we would not have paid a penny more!

We then headed to a Batik store that's supposed to be pretty famous and pretty good. They had some nice things, but not exceptionally wonderful, so we opted not to buy much. After that little stop we headed out of the mall and across the way to have dinner at a Korean restuarant. The dinner was quite tasty, though the portions weren't fantastically large. By the end of the dinner, we were all exhausted and dragging ourselves back to the mall to catch a taxi back to Connie and Kasmin's. We found a taxi with ease, fortunately, and were too tired to either watch a movie or go get the yogurt. I think that's on the agenda for today at some point...

Now, we're off to pamper ourselves at the spa. I'm hoping they have some awesome packages that include a hot stone massage, because that's what my body is definitely craving...

Tomorrow, I'm off to Malaysia. And the girls are heading back to the US! The Indonesian adventure is rapidly coming to a close.