What's on your mind as you landed in Indonesia for the first time?

I found this old post whilst searching for something else but it could generate a lot of potentially interesting answers.

My first visit was a bit of a shock, mostly because I was expecting it to be very much like Malaysia -  how wrong I was.
Meeting my father in law for the first time was my first cultural cock up, shaking him by the hand as I would in England rather than the light handshakes normal here.
I gave the bloke's hand a squeeze, then saw the colour drain from his face, that being replaced by a shocked expression.

My first shocking experience was dealing with customs freight at the airport.  It's actually a taxi ride away from the terminal but once there you know your dealing with freight and customs.  First, after speaking with a customs official my translator and I were approached by a man who came out of nowhere and began helping us.  My friend/translator later told me he gave him 50 ribu because he asked for it and offered to help us navigate customs.  He did nothing but get us a copy of a letter that said my shipment had not arrived yet, return on Monday.  He told my friend he would be waiting for us on Monday and they exchanged numbers.  He also wanted 500 ribu for helping us on Monday once we returned.  Now he was not an official nor was he dressed like one but he seemed to know how way around the place. 
Monday came and I decided we can do this without him and we did.
But once customs physically checked my freight we were told the freight could not be put on a plane to Jogia until next week.  They moved the freight  outside and all these men gathered around me and my friend (about 7 of them) and my friend told me they all want to be paid because they helped me.  I was like, helped me do what, they did their job and brought my freight out the warehouse why should I pay them.  I was astonished at how many wanted to be paid for doing their job.  I refused to pay them, luckily my friend went inside and found their superior who came outside and yelled at them to leave and go back inside.  It got kinda hairy for a few minutes but it worked out and I did have to pay them.  The customs fee was enough to pay for but having to pay 7 additional people for the same thing, no.

My first experience in arriving in Indonesia is how easy it was to date a girl. I arrived at Kemayoran Airport many decades ago and there were some student girls interviewing people and I started chatting with one and we later dated.

The first place I worked in Indonesia was in a jungle clearing in Kalimantan where we'd see Dayaks wandering through the jungle. I was working on contract with Union Oil and at times with the American company Huffco and I clearly remember enjoying Huffco's bowling alley at there base camp in Balikpapan.

There was one incident where we drilled into shallow gas at about 1200 feet depth and gas was bubbling up all around us. One of the supply boats started it's engine to try to move away from the drill ship and a spark caused the sea all around us to catch alight. Several local roustabouts were injured including one who fell into the sea and was never seen again.

Another thing that I recall was that Indonesian Customs removed any cassette tapes with Chinese writing on them and any Chinese newspapers. Of course that was a very long time ago and times have changed.

One of the supply boats started it's engine to try to move away from the drill ship and a spark caused the sea all around us to catch alight. Several local roustabouts were injured including one who fell into the sea and was never seen again.

Hope the fools are still in jail, supply vessel and no power?