On December 9th the trip to Indonesia started. We were going from 40 & 50-degree winters to a Tropical 75-80 degree winter.
Flying to Jakarta was the longest I have ever spent inside of an airplane. Here’s my in-air Flight time, 1-hour Las Vegas to LAX…14 ½ hours from LAX to Taipei… 5 ½ hours Taipei to Jakarta. And just think Colin had to fly 5 ½ hours longer then me from the East to the West coast.
How I ended up staying an extra week… We were out at dinner the night before are flights back to the U.S. & Colin and I got invited to stay longer. Colin already had another trip planned back home, so it took me a little while but I decided to stay.
Two days later the WIM Cycle BMX team and I took a 1-hour flight to Surabaya. The riders from Bandung, Indonesia also traveled there and meet up with us. We went there because WIM Cycle was putting on a contest, it was inside of a mall. There was also a 1-year anniversary party That JSI Sportz Magazine was putting on.
After a couple days of hanging out we went to the mall where the contest was, I didn’t ride in the contest. The ramps in Surabaya were in better condition. The box jump still had a bank landing, but the quarters didn’t flex or move as bad as the others. There was 1 public skate park in Surabaya and one that was being built. 
While in Indonesia we ate mostly inside the malls at restaurants. (Every mall we went inside had at least 4 levels) The only time I would eat from the food stands was if it was “Sa’te”. It’s Grilled Chicken with peanut sauce. Sa’te is so good!
McDonald’s take like McDonald’s no matter what country you are in. Fried Chicken is served with white rice at Mc D’s Indonesia. The Chinese food was amazing, best I have ever had! The Bakery’s were real tasty too I miss all those pastries!
December 23rd rolls around, the alarm goes off, its time to wake up for the 3:30am ride to the airport. I arrived at the airport check-in counter around 4:15am. The lady that is helping me is going over my flight Info; then she looks up at me and says, “Your flight isn’t until 2:30pm.” (I checked with Ian the night before my flight and he said the flight was at 6:00am. I thought that my flight had changed but he said it was the same time as Colin’s flight home.)
After that we figure just drop me off at a nearby hotel. I don’t know what time it was when I feel to sleep but I woke up some hours later to a man knocking at my door yelling Indonesian. Once I opened up the door he stopped yelling and said something to me… I said back to him, “ Airport?” …The man shook his head and said YA! So I closed the door put my contacts in and got my bags together. By the way my room was on the 4th floor, oh and there is no elevator. I’m pulling my bike and suitcase down the hallway, as I reached the stairs and there’s a guy walking up them with no shirt on. He says something and grabs my Bike bag from me. He puts it onto his back, takes it down the four floors and put in inside the shuttle van to the Air Port... I was on the way home again.
Thanks to are guides, everyone from: WIM Cycles, JSI Sportz Magazine, The Association of BMX Indonesia, Haro Bikes & Rockstar Energy Drinks for making it possible.
