couldn't take mountains of gear with the in the cabin.
One got used to that in Indonesia.
During the 90s I was involved in a number of audits there (although I would far have rathered a guernsey on the Bouraq contract with the boys). On one such sojourn, we found ourselves out in the boonies looking at a strip on Halmahera and then needing a lift from Gorontalo to Ambon.
As I recall we were supposed to travel on Merpati .. which just didn't turn up .. day in, day out. We would go out to the airport, wait around for a couple of hours and then go back to the pub and get some more local culture for the evening.
Eventually even the system appeared to get embarassed and, on the final day, we waited and then observed a tatty old G1 trundle onto the apron .. you guessed it. So out to the bird a total of about 18 or so pax ambled with more junk under their collective arms than you could poke a stick at. To cut a long story short, my colleague and I ended up in about the second back row with the overhead (old railway carriage style) open racks and centre aisle filled to capacity with junk.
Then, to make matters worse, Ambon wx resulted in some holding and a diversion back to Gorontalo. We then won second prize .. which was another trip on the G1 back to Ambon later that day.
Loved Indonesia .. great country and absolutely beautiful once you got out of the cities.