Trip to Palangkaraya

A couple of weeks ago in between unit 4 and unit 5 at IMLAC, our language school, we had a week long break.  We decided to take this opportunity to visit one of our MAF bases and get a glimpse of what life will be like for our family after language school.  We also wanted to have some fun.  We visited the MAF float plane base in Palangkaraya, on the island of Borneo.  We will not be serving at this MAF base, however this base is in the same Kalimantan program we will be serving with.

Since we like to save money (maybe we are a bit cheap) we decided to fly on Lion Air.  I'm going to let my airport geek flag fly here fly for a bit.  Check this out:  Lion Air doesn't provide beltloaders for their rampers, and they have to load a 737-900!  The seat pitch is also the craziest seat pitch I have ever seen!  They also charge for water.  Other than that it is a great airline.  Really.  I guess not every body can be as good as Horizon Air.  We will fly on Loin Air again of coarse, being cheap and all.

We flew through Jakarta, the last time our family was in Jakarta was when we first moved here.  I remember all the Indonesians in the airport sounding like the adults do on Charlie Brown cartoons to me, you know, "Wha, whah, wa, whah."  It was a lot easier flying through Jakarta this time because we could actually understand what people were saying to us!  Proof that language school is working.  

On Sunday when everybody at the MAF hanger had the day off, we came down with the MAF family that was hosting us and played on the dock.

Here are the two oldest MAF planes (I believe) in the fleet.  There is a brand new Kodiak on floats bound for Palangkaraya waiting for certification (Mike actually worked on the Kodiak that will be based here when we stayed in Idaho waiting for our Visas).  

Don't judge, we jumped into the brown water.  In our defense, it is stinkin' hot in Indonesia, and it was super fun.  Parts per million is what we were told to think about while we swam.

Here is my turn on the rope.  Mike captured this moment on the GoPro, along with all of the crying before I got up my courage to actually jump (I'm not the best with heights).  To answer the question you must be thinking, "Did any water get in her mouth?"  The answer is, "yes".  I did have my mouth closed, but the impact of hitting the water made it shoot up my nose, and I ended up with a mouthful of river water.  I'm still alive, so it can't be that bad.  Parts per million!

Colton's turn!

Macie didn't play on the rope swing, but she had fun jumping off the side of the dock and floating on the tube, which was tied to the dock so that she wouldn't float away.

On Monday our whole family was able to go on a quick flight around town.  I have always wanted to go for a flight on a float plane, so I was quite excited.  Compared to the island of Java, the island we currently live on, this part of Borneo is completely different.  Java is covered in volcanoes, and hills, and it is very densely populated. Palangkaraya is very flat and the houses are more spread out.  The people who live here actually have space in between each other.

Our trip to Palangkaraya is exactly what we needed.  It gave us some extra motivation to keep pressing on and trying our best in language school, our trip also gave us a lot of opportunities to practice our language skills.  It was also good to get out of Salatiga for a bit, we love Salatiga, but it is on the small side.  This trip was the first time our family rode in a car for 2 months!

I hope you enjoyed our pictures, for now our family is back into the school routine.  It is a bit hectic because all four of us are in school right now.