August 11, 2005 : SOEKARNO-HATTA AIRPORT (compare to the ones in other Asia countries)

This feeling always appears. I went overseas, I saw great airport buildings (the structure, the decoration, the cleanliness, the sophistication, the great environment and arrangement).

When I landed home, I must face the reality here. Jakarta airport is still in good condition, but it really needs redecoration and staff improvement!
Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bangkok, Guangzhou airport are like exclusive shopping malls.

The waiting rooms have wall to wall carpeting, the seats are comfy.....Those are airports in big cities. Not to mention airports in smaller cities, like Penang-Malaysia and Kun Ming-China, SAME!

Now, see Jakarta airport: it's gloomy, waiting rooms aren't nice, no carpeting, the seats are old and not comfy for my butt and back. One good thing is that they have wash room and mushola down stairs.

I got a not-so-good treatment from a custom officer after I got back from KL this Monday.
See, I wear jilbab. And there were Indonesian women workers came back from Arabian countries and they wore close clothing and jilbab.
But they can't go through custom in the regular queue, they had to gather and will be lead by some officer (actually these officers just want some money from the workers!)
I continue my walk to custom gate.
No discipline there, there were a lot of people wanted to go out of the gate, but only few gates were open. Only one gate was open for Indonesia passport holders, but four gates for foreign passport holders. But we all didn't care, we queued everywhere. As long as we can go out fast.

When it was my turn, I handed over my passport to the officer.

A conversation occured:
Officer: Dari mana neng ? (dengan nada melecehkan) - Where did you go, dear? (harrasing tone)
Me: Dari Kuala Lumpur (dgn nada agak kesal) - from Kuala Lumpur (annoyed feeling)
Officer: Emang Kerja apa di sana? (masih dgn nada belagu) - Well, what did you do there? (still in that same tone)
Me: Training! (with disgust feeling)

(Hey, I know what you think shithead! You think I'm one of those workers, huh, because I wear jilbab? You can't treat people that way, especially to the same Indonesian. Either it's me or workers, your job is to provide service. So, smile and be nice, not be an a**hole!)

Oh God, when you all snap and realize how you can be modernized and improved with that attitude?