A Staggered Start: SYD-MEL-CGK

All packed, Indonesian visas done on-line, and now to Sydney Domestic, then to Melbourne, to Jakarta, and tomorrow early, to Dubai and then Rome. Qantas and Emirates cannot be as bad as Air France, so there is a high level of confidence that our one checked bag will be with us in Jakarta, and on a carousel in Rome shortly after we arrive. In Rome, we catch a train to Venice, which Anne has booked.

I have never been to Venice, but we have lived in a house called 'San Marco' for nearly 30 years, so it is about time. The house was built by RP Gowing, whose wife was Eliza Carlotta Lucia Vanzetti, b 19 Oct 1883 in Garda, Brescia, Lombardia, Italy. That is close to Venice, and they spent their honeymoon partly in Venice. Hence the house name.

Customs will be a new experience on the way over. We have more medical supplies than usual, so here's hoping that all works smoothly. Plenty of time at each interchange...

Security at Sydney was fine. They wanted to check the blue canister, especially when Anne explained that it was where she kept her drugs. I think they had seen it all before.

Transit in Jakarta, where the case appeared on the carousel almost as we arrived, and then immigration was just as fast. Too fast: the Emirates check-in desk was not open when we reached departures. The air smelled of clove cigarettes, and at the exits of tropics, but we did not go out. 50 years ago Jakarta was the first stop when I left Sydney, and at midnight there were thousands of people in the dark, just watching planes and passengers from the flat roof of a single-storey terminal. That whole terminal would fit in this one Departures hall…Read more