Random shots
Bouraq had a fleet of Electras...none flying when we got there, Viscounts, HS 748s and Casas.
Mount Merapi which still often pops and bangs and drives the villagers away was the nigger in the woodpile in the
afternoon flight from Surabaya to Jogjakarta inside the black sky.
Looks like Brisbane recently but is normal. I went back for a holiday two years ago to examine places like this
from the ground. Visited these limestone hills in the dry season and climbed two volcanos. Magic holiday.
Balikpapan new tarmac. They were working on lengthening and WIDENING the runway.
Balikpapan was 1981 m long but very narrow which gave the impresson of being long so the F.Os were comfy landing there BUT Banjamarsin (also on Kalimantan ... Borneo) was same length but incredibly wide so it looked very short and the F.Os were very edgy.
The next wave of Aussies. After them Yanks and a Canadian were employed because our Chinese boss worried we might get troublesome if there were too many Aussies.
To make sure we didn't run away, they told us immigration needed to see our passports again and then kept them for months saying not yet when we asked for them back.
There isn't a word for NO in Indonesian and it is regarded as bad manners to be definite in the negative, so 'soon', 'not yet' are used which had us reckoning they were lying to us.
At Surabaya. One of the tower controllers was a mother who sometimes took her kids to work with her and they'd ride their dinkies around the top veranda.
Chick magnets.
They were old style Hostesses, charming and knew their job.