Living through a nightmare

What do you do, when you are stuck in an alien country amongst monster aliens who seem to be born with the sole purpose of breaking you down? Do you take the easy (and obviously the wrong) way out, or do you fight it out? Well, if under any other circumstance somebody asked me this question, I would have said – fight it out, ALWAYS, because that’s what will let you sleep peacefully at night.
But it’s hard to be so objective when it’s your own life which seems to be in a mess.

I landed at Jakarta airport on 26th of April. In spite of my absolute reluctance to travel and repeated & desperate efforts, I couldn’t cancel the Indonesia trip. I have been paranoid about travelling to Indonesia ever since I heard (on news channels in Australia, in 2005) about the trial of a 22 year old Australian girl who was charged of Drug trafficking (and handed 20 years rigorous imprisonment) at the Bali airport – she claimed that she didn’t even know how that packet got there – her only fault was that she checked in her luggage without locking it). Needless to say, I had double locked my check-in baggage!!!

So I land at the airport and proceed towards the ‘visa on arrival’ counter. After a 20 min wait, I handed over my passport to the lady on the other side of the counter. And then it all began – she stared at my passport for a good while, before turning it upside down and pulling it in all directions. For a while I was scared that she might tear it – so I said, ‘Ma’am, please be careful’. (Mistake 1)
With offended looks, she asked me to wait aside, while she phoned her supervisor. I stood by the side, while every passer by gave me the ‘awww-poor-you’ looks.

A police officer appeared after a generous while, and said “Purpose”. In the best of my brains, I tried to decipher, and all that I could come up with was Business”. He said something which I could understand, so I said ‘sorry?’ and THAT offended him. Ok. Ok. I accept. I said it in my typical FIC tone. (Mistake 2)

Well, apparently they get offended at everything you say, so the best thing to do is to keep shut I guess.

Officer: ^%$$R^%$ (screaming at the top of his voice in an incomprehensible language)
Me: Can you please get me someone who speaks English? (Mistake 3)
Officer: Follow me (so you do speak English, you a***hole)

I followed him to a room, where I saw 5 more of those. This is when I showed first signs of panic (Mistake 4).

Me: Why should I get in that room?
Officer 1: Come in. We need to ask you some questions.
Me: Ok. (I sit down on a chair, while the 6 of them stand surrounding me)
Officer 1: So why are you here?
Me: I came here for business
Officer 2: Everyone says that... What business?
Me: I work for a Mobile company and am here for a meeting.
Officer 1: Which company? Show your company id.
Me: I am not carrying my company id. Will a business card do? (Why would I carry my access card to Jakarta!!!!)
Officer 1: No good.
Me: Ok.
Officer 1: Why does your passport have no pages?
Me: Because unfortunately (On any other occasion I would have thought that it was fortunate, but this was clearly unfortunate) my job requires me to travel quite a lot. But I do have half a page left. You can stamp the visa on that one!
Officer 3: Did you not know that you need one full page?
Me: No I did not. I have never been to Indonesia before. I thought you can stamp on half a page. Officer: What visa can be stamped on half page?
Me: Well, Malaysia does it!!! (Mistake 5)
Officer 1: WE ARE NOT MALAYSIA (you didn’t have to scream like that, you bas^%&d, I can hear you perfectly clear)
Officer 3: What business is this that takes you to so many countries?
Me: Like I said, I work for a mobile company, and I need to travel for business
Officer 1: And what do you carry on your trips?
Me: My clothes and a laptop!!! (What’s with you f%^&ers, do you travel in your underwear or what!!!)
Officer 2: Not clothes. Anything else?
Me: What else?
Officer 1: That’s what we are asking you.
Me: (more signs of panic) What are you trying to say?
Officer 2: We are not trying to say anything. We just want the truth.
Me: BUT THIS IS THE TRUTH (Mistake 6)
Officer 1: Watch your tongue Lady!!!
Me: Can you please let me talk to someone in India?
Officer 4: NO (Ok, so you can speak too!)
Me: But why not?
Officer 4: Because we are not finished with our questions?
Me: And why are you asking me so many questions? WHAT DO YOU WANT? (Tears in my eyes - almost - Well, I did do a good job of putting a brave front till now)
Officer 1: There is an easy way out and a hard one. Which one do you want?
Me: ???? (Puzzled look on my face – too shocked and too scared to speak)
Officer 1: You have seen the hard way. If you don’t cooperate, we might have to keep you here longer. (You have already kept me in this interrogation room for almost an hour, you F&^%$er!!!)
Me: No you can't keep me here. I need to talk to the Indian embassy, please?
Officer 1: Sorry Ma'am.
Me: *sigh* OK. What’s the easy way?
Officer 1: You give $300 and we let you go.
Me: WHAT???? $300?? But I don’t have that money!! (So all this shit was just about money, what F*&^%ers!!)
Officer 1: Then I am sorry ma’am. You will have to be here till you are deported.
Me: And how long will that be?
Officer 1: 1 or 2 days. May be longer. I am not sure.
Me: But there HAS to be another way
Officer 1: We already told you. (Panic releases - OK so it’s not that bad. I can get out of this shit with some bribe)

Strongly against drugs as I am, for the first time I ever thought, maybe the Australian really WAS innocent, but we will never know!!!!

Yeah, I did survive this nightmare and I must admit that I had a guardian angel by my side that they didn’t choose to charge me of some insane crime.

I emptied my wallet, begged, pleaded, screamed, cried, swore, cursed – managed to get out for $150.

I hate myself for being a part of the bribing exercise. Because I gave in, they will try the same thing on someone else some other time.

But like I said, it’s hard to be objective when it’s your own life. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough to live up to my own principles.