After 26 hours of flights, 3 days of travel, 1 hotel night, 6 bags of luggage, and 2 hours held by customs … I finally made it to my little white house on the hill in Bengkulu. I brought back 6 bags of luggage filled with items for the teacher workshop in March. Customs can be a bit thorny with people who they perceive as bringing too much stuff into the country and not paying tax. I was worried about the amount of money I was carrying being a problem. I brought in $8,000 which is over the limit. Not a word about the money. They were mostly concerned about the $8,000 in workshop materials I brought with me. They detained me for 2 hours. The nice men and a woman who held me said they needed their boss to approve the items. The boss–I think they called him the director, but not sure–showed up. I had a letter from the University of Bengkulu and the U.S. Embassy explaining what I intended to do with the items. Best thing to do in when you are detained—call your peeps!! I called Abdul (university colleague) and my peep at the U.S. Embassy. Abdul did not get very far with them, but my peep at the U.S. Embassy must have said something super powerful. When she finished talking to the man in charge, he said, “Welcome to Indonesia. I am sorry for the way you were treated.” Not kidding!!!

If I were customs, I would have stopped me too! Look at this!!

You might read this and think … OMG that is soooooo scary!!! I was not scared. I have been through much scarier. Once you read these stories you will see why this was no big deal.

I was in a taxi in the middle of the night going from Tikal to Antigua, Guatemala. Does not really matter why I was out in the middle of the night in a taxi–I just was. Around 2:00am the driver was pulled over by the police. The police ordered all of us out of the car. They took the cab driver to the front of the car. My friend and I were separated taken to each side of the car. They interrogated us in Spanish so we had difficulty answering. Took ALL of our stuff out of our luggage. Made us sit on the ground while they did it. We could not see each other. They told the taxi driver he should not be out driving us around at night. He explained the situation and said he would go back as soon as he dropped us off in Antigua. He told us after it was over they wanted him to leave us on the side of the road and return to Tikal. All of this at gunpoint. Now that is scary.

When I was in the Dominican Republic, my friend who was driving went the wrong way down a one way street in Santo Domingo. By the way–my fault!!! A young boy on a motorbike hit us on my side of the car. It was like a movie. He rolled over the front of the car and onto the ground. He was hurt. People came out of their houses like ants and yelled at us. The police came and took us ALL to the hospital. We were not hurt. At the hospital, the police guarded us with guns. We had to hire an attorney to come to the hospital. Thank goodness for car rental insurance. The insurance company supplied an attorney. The attorney took care of everything. They were going to put us in jail. By the time we were straight with the family and the hospital (we paid money) and we went to the attorney’s office to take care of paperwork, it was night time. The attorney took us to a hotel. He told us not to leave the hotel until morning and get out before the light of day. He did not need to tell us twice. It was like the end of Chinatown when the woman is screaming because the man driving the car was shot. “Just get him the hell out of here. Go home Jake. I’m doing you a favor.” That is basically what the attorney said before he left us at the hotel.

So now you can see why being held by customs was not scary! My Aunt Bea said when I had a motorcycle accident, “Young’un, you don’t have too many more lives to live. You need to be careful.” She has no idea. I am probably living on some borrowed lives from other people–like a vampire.