If you are familiar with Dante, you will recognize this as the saying inscribed on the Gate of Hell that the condemned pass through on their way to eternal damnation. But, I bet you didn't know this is also the saying inscribed above the entrance to the Customs Office at Soekarno-Hatto Airport in Jakarta--the place where my three suitcases have been held for 15 MONTHS now. Though I haven't provided you any details of my visit to the Customs Office today, I think both the headline and the first paragraph qualify as textbook examples of foreshadowing and you don't need to have ESP to have figured out how our expedition turned out. I was accompanied by Tasya (she is picture here dressed in camo, though her battlefield attire was of no use) and Gigih, the poor souls in HR, who have inherited this mess from the previous souls in HR, who no longer work at SU. They escaped before they had to pass through the Customs Office Gates. I will not bore you with details of the three ...
As my flight was approaching the international airport in Bali, I noticed a giant statue on the horizon that was about 15 kilometers away, but appeared as though it must have been hundreds of feet tall. I decided that I would visit it while I was on Bali. My last day on Bali, I decided to hire a taxi to take me to the Gurita Vishnu Kencana Statue, which depicts Vishnu riding on Garuda. Including the pedestal, it is 122 meters tall (30 meters taller than the Statue of Liberty) and the winged Garuda's wingspan is 64 meters. And the statue is so massive it can be viewed from up to 20 kilometers away. It is the tallest statue in Indonesia and the tallest statue of a Hindu deity. When the taxi I hired arrived at the park entrance about a kilometer from the statue, we found that the site was closed indefinitely. I couldn't take a picture, because you couldn't see the statue at all through the trees and it was obscured further by the terrain. My intrepid driver at...
Because I spend almost all of my time in my apartment, I sometimes forget I am living in the tropics. But this torrential downpour serves as a reminder of where I am situated. And pictures from a phone really don't capture the full force of the deluge. More rain in an afternoon than Naryn gets in half a year.
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