My trip had been uneventful until I got to Bali. Flight connections….. Flawless. Slept for 8 hours across the Pacific. Free Internet in Hong Kong was great. Perfect seat assignments on the isle and interesting passengers to chat with all along the way… Then I got to Bali. Even there I was almost the first person off the plane, the hall were you clear customs was unbelievably full (especially for 1:40 AM), in fact it was entirely full and overflowing up the walk way from the planes, hundreds and hundreds of people. Mostly Chinese mainlanders and Korean tourists in groups filled the hall. Even then I walked through the disorganized cacophony of a crowd to a line to purchase visa permits (now up to $25 for a thirty-day single entry visa). I was now ahead of literally several hundred folks still trying to figure out what line they were in and what they were suppose to do next, and was off to the immigration agent, again looking ahead I crossed over to the opposite side of the large hall and there before me was a line with less than 10 people in it, a new worker had just started a new line and I was just in the right place at the right time. The other 10 lines had 50 to 70 people in them.

A few minutes later I was the first one form our flight looking for my baggage, the others hundreds of people behind me in a line moving like a slug on a cold wet day back home. The baggage was being stacked on the conveyor belt two high and when the belt careened around the corners the luggage would tumble off to the side, sometimes inside the belt, sometimes outside. The first few first-class passengers were just arriving when my old, black Samsonite suitcase straight from the Goodwill came around the corner on the belt. Soon followed by the box that Sierra had sent with me that contained a thick temperature conforming mattress for her bed in Timor to help her sleep with the herniated disc in her back. The box was small about 2.5 feet on a side. The queen sized mattress was compressed into the box, or more accurately the box had a very dense round ball inside of it with a highly compressed and then covered in plastic wrap mattress, sort of like the sponges that kids sometimes get in a very small container that when gotten wet expands to many times it size. The box had the cover for the mattress too, which took up a lot more space than the mattress itself because the mattress was so powerfully compressed.

I walked directly from the conveyor belt where the items had been collected to customs, again no line and no problems. I put the box, the suitcase and my briefcase in the x-ray unit and walked around to pick it up on the other side. All came out fine but as I walk toward the door a short mustached and uniformed man held up his hand and directed me to the bench where luggage is searched. He was not the least interested in looking through the briefcase, and suitcase. I had two computers in my briefcase that might requires some real explaining and had a supply of medications in my suitcase, enough to take care of an entire school of children, that I was headed toward in the Himalayan part of India when I was finished in Timor, which likewise might take some detailed explaining. But he had eyes only for the box, which had a hastily encircled rope, actually two ropes. One old piece of hard yellow plastic line and an even older cotton rope of a much smaller diameter, that has been tied hastily around it so that there was some way for the luggage handlers to easily pick up the parcel. He untied the ropes and started to cut open the box, I was afraid he would cut the mattress inside so I offered to open it for him. He immediately handed me a box cutter and happily watched me carefully cut the seams open and lift the lid of the box. Another man approached and stuck a wand inside and went off to a machine on the side of the hall.

Now I have always seen but never really thought about those signs I had just walked by that say in all Capital letters: DEATH TO DRUG TRAFFICERS in blood red letters. As the alarm went off a second time the machine that tests for illegal substances I began to think about those signs. The mattress in the box was brand new, was bought in the US, the box had not been opened, all the pertinent facts raced through my brain as the customs officials of higher rank gravitated to my station. The questions began, where had I come from, where was I going, what was in the box, where had I bought it, how much did it cost, did I have a receipt…… Lots of very straightforward questions. When first asked what was in the box I had said that it was a mattress I had bought for my daughter because I did not want to go into the long explanation of why I was taking something for someone else into another country. Instantly life became more difficult as they asked what store I had bought it at and how much, exactly, had it cost. I said “Kmart” reflexively and guessed $215. They retorted that it would be much more expensive than that here in Indonesia. Then they sympathetically said they wanted to test it further. My sense was that they believed I was who I said I was but now they needed to prove that the test was wrong. They took the highly compressed mattress out of the box and tested it again this time reaching down inside the outer wrapping of plastic that kept it compressed …… same result. Then they said they wanted to put it through the x ray again.

Not since I had been detained a few years ago in Laos by the military police for having a satellite phone, have I been in this much of a stressfull situation. I had taken photos of some political posters and then made a call to a friend that was near death from recurrence of her breast cancer from a bus station in Luang Probang. The station manager had asked to see my passport, he kept it and soon a man with a gun showed up followed by three and eventually by a truckload of men with rifles. They had taken me off to the basement of the military police headquarters to talk with me, requesting through three different translators just one thing, why did I have a phone that did not go through their phone system and who had I been talking to. Not unreasonable questions, I just did not have what to them were satisfying answers. Not since then had I felt the pressure of being abroad and feeling like something could go wrong that could not be fixed by the light of day on the issues at hand.

Back at the x ray machine, first a high definition one and then the regular one with a crowed of inspection officers huddled around, I peeked a look too. The mattress just looked like a very dense gray cloud, much denser at the center. I had kept an eye on my other belongings as there was now a stream of tourists flowing through the customs station which had been almost entirely abandoned by the staff and the bolus of passengers that I had gotten ahead of now swelled to overflowing and even those that have been backed up into the baggage area were now a torrent of people through the inspection benches. I returned to my suitcase and brief case and waited for the head officer, who directly came to me to say politely that they would need to open up the highly compressed mattress. Now all the customs people, about 10 were focused one my box and the flood of passengers flowed by in what seemed like a torrent of people, no one stopping but many watching what was going on. I said it would be impossible to get it back in the box, a fact they were well aware of.

We negotiated and the lead inspector very generously said he would keep the box over night and that I could pick it up in the morning and take it with me to Timor, presumably letting the Timorese customs people deal with it in a place where a queen size mattress would be easier to manage since it would be in a place where a huge mattress could be transported by car rather than by plane. Just as this was agreed to by both of us as a great resolution a short 40ish man in civilian clothes walked up to us and spoke to the customs official, both were then frowning, more talk in Indonesian, and then the customs official turned to me. “My boss” the man in slacks and a civilian shirt, “says we have to open it up, now”. There was no doubt in his voice and the certainty of the tone let me know it was time to figure out how I was going to get a huge item like a mattress on to a plane as luggage, thinking that someone in Bali was going to have a new bed tonight. There was little to negotiate at this point. I knew it would expand but was not sure how quickly. They carefully opened the box took out the gray plastic wrapped mattress that looked like an over grown football but less pointed ends and about 2 feet long. The plastic wrapper was pulled out and was a tough plastic wrap like you would put a sandwich in but about 4 feet wide and considerably thicker, about 3 yards of it unrolled easily and they we came to the mattress material, it was very dense and began to move as if it were alive but very slowly, like a genie getting out of a bottle after centuries of captivity. About 5 feet of the mattress was now laying in an 18 inch wide flattened mass perhaps 4 inches thick. Fortunately the young man with the testing wand quickly took a sample and directly walked back over to the testing device. Everyone looked at him as the line of tourist slowed to gawk at the proceedings but never came to a halt; they just became a molasses like group of upright sardines with rubbernecks looking back at the proceedings.

The thought crossed my mind that perhaps someone had put something inside the box to get it here and then would steal it back once I had left the airport and that I could be in real trouble, but before I was able to perseverate on that fear, and as quickly as it had all started with a casual request to look inside the box all my fears vanished as the man who had taken the test shouted to the boss that it was the plastic wrap and not drugs that were responsible for the results. The clear plastic wrapper had tested positive but the mattress itself was fine. Presumably some plastics cross react with more malevolent substances. Even though it was said in Indonesian I some how understood and everyone had a look of relief on their faces. The head of the uniformed customs officers explained what I had already guessed. He apologized for the bother but at the same time he and his team were rapidly trying to put the genie back in the bottle. Amazingly, and entirely unlike in the fairy tail, the mattress was as quickly as possible rewrapped in the plastic and though it had expanded some it was possible to stuff it and its cover back into the box from which they had emerged, bulging on all sides but still it fit! We taped the edges and then I tied a rope to be sure to hold it together, still fearing that the genie would try to escape again.

Out I went into the late night air to find a taxi to the hotel where Sierra and Sean were waiting for me to arrive.