My Wife Lost Her iPhone in Indonesia

At the beginning of the pandemic

Notice I wrote “iPhone” and not “phone” or “mobile” or some variation of that. If she had owned an Android phone, I probably wouldn’t have written “Android.” And it’s not only because there’s a distant but distinct possibility that readers might assume my wife owns a cyborg.

Thanks for indulging me. Now on to the story.

The Story

My wife and I are very different people. (How many husbands have said that at the beginning of a movie before getting murdered by the end of the first act?)

Yes, like every modern human being, I’m rather attached to my phone. Reliant. Dependent. All those synonyms. But as much as I am as prone as the next person to zone out on cat videos or the equivalent, using my phone as a tool of communication with other human beings is pretty much on an as-needed basis.

On the other hand, my wife is constantly on her phone, fielding messages from her mom, her sister, her best friend, and other family members back home. Maybe this says less about the difference in our use of technology and more about the difference in our closeness to our respective families and friends. Perhaps I should be jealous.

So what?

Anyway, the previous three paragraphs are meant to illustrate two points:

1. If I had been the one to lose my phone, we would’ve been in far more dire straits in practical terms.
2. Her being the one to lose her iPhone was more emotionally distressing.

Another fact that made this journey tough was the timing: It was the beginning of the pandemic in China, where we were living at the time (and still living…which is another story altogether), so we had already changed our travel plans, canceling our flights back to China and purchasing new flights to stay in Indonesia longer (we would end up traveling to Malaysia and Laos as well to avoid going back to China).

In other words, we were already pretty stressed out (we would eventually learn to enjoy the extra travel time, but this was literally our first destination after what should’ve been the end of our trip in Kalimantan, probably better known globally as Indonesian Borneo).

The Story, Really

Anyway, now on to the story. Really this time.

Medan

We landed in Kuala Namu, which is the airport of the city of Medan, the largest on the island of Sumatra. The airport was nice, the city itself less so, and this is coming from someone who had visited Jakarta within the past month. (Now, before the flames come, be honest and ask yourself and your fellow traveler friends whether you’ve been anywhere in Indonesia other than Bali. Even Indonesian friends are surprised when we tell them how extensively we’ve traveled in their home country.)

Fortunately, we planned to stay only one night. If we wanted to say goodbye to that subpar hotel (motel) room, however, we needed to buy bus tickets to Lake Toba, very highly recommended especially if you’re tired of the cliche of traveling to Bali.

The purchase of the bus tickets was an adventure in itself. Years earlier, I had gone on comparable adventures in India and the Middle East and Latin America. But I was younger then and single.

(Here is where I might get chastised for implying that my wife can’t take care of herself or that she’s some sort of spoiled princess. We have what some might call a traditional marriage. She doesn’t work. She takes care of our home. I take care of business when we’re not at home. She did not particularly feel safe at the bus station where we bought the tickets, and she explicitly said she would never visit such a place without me — right after telling me to tell the taxi driver to wait for us so we wouldn’t have to call another one. Wow, this is spiraling.)

We eventually got the tickets and, to my eternal shame, had dinner at the Burger King across the street from our hotel. As much as we both enjoy exploring local establishments, on this particular night, we needed something familiar.

That night, we both slept poorly. Traffic noise outside never ceased.

I was more or less satisfied with the included breakfast at the hotel. The taxi ride to the bus station was uneventful.

Bye Bye, Medan

And then things got eventful only a few minutes after the bus departed (with us seated inside).

Some rummaging. The rummaging got frantic. The upending of all the contents of her handbag onto her lap.

“Where’s my iPhone? I can’t find my iPhone!”

“Oh, boy.”

Three possibilities:

1. She had left her phone in the hotel.
2. She had left her phone in the taxi.
3. She had left her phone somewhere at the bus station.

As usual, she was on her phone during the taxi ride, so Option 1 was out. The taxi had barely arrived in time, so we hopped out and ran straight to the bus, which made Option 2 far more likely than Option 3.

The tears came quickly. It was an understandable reaction.

I forget whether Gojek, the Indonesian equivalent of Uber, provided full contact information of drivers at the time, but luckily I remembered the license plate of the taxi. I promptly wrote it down, and we formulated a plan.

But, first, she needed to inform all relevant parties back home so they wouldn’t freak out after not hearing from her for four hours. She got herself together before delivering the voice messages.

Hello, Toba

On the positive side, the bus ride offered stunning views. We arrived in a lakeside town and got boat tickets that would take us to the other side of Lake Toba, where our hotel was.

As we waited for the ferry, my wife told me she actually felt liberated without her phone. She was merely trying to look on the bright side.

The first order of business at the hotel was to speak to the manager immediately about our need for assistance. I gave him the license plate number, and he found the registered telephone number on Gojek. (It’s been two and half years. I might be getting some of the technical details mixed up.)

We called the taxi driver together. His wife answered. She said her husband had found no telephone in his vehicle. My wife quickly realized that she was trying to protect her husband. We had to win her confidence.

After we assured her that we had no intention of taking any legal action or pursuing any goal other than getting the phone back, she allowed her husband to come to the video call. Of course, the entire time, the wonderful manager was interpreting (different from translating, which is technically written).

We offered a financial reward, but the taxi driver refused it.

It was the manager who came up with a solution. He had a driver who would be coming from Medan anyway the next day. The manager’s driver would pick up the phone from the taxi driver in Medan and deliver it to Toba.

Hey, Siri

The next day, we waited anxiously for the ferry that would take us to the other side of the lake (one of the many other sides of the lake), where we met the manager’s driver, who gave us back my wife’s iPhone. She nearly wept with relief.

We paid the manager’s driver a nominal sum, which might or might not have included what he probably paid the Gojek taxi driver as a show of our gratitude, after quickly inspecting the phone. Not a single new scratch.

My wife proceeded to send rapid voice messages from her phone.

In spite of this adventure or perhaps because of it (and most certainly due to the rest of our trip in Indonesia, which was filled with awe-inspiring beauty), Indonesia is now one of my wife’s favorite countries in the world. Even though we are still not fans of Jakarta or Medan, we enjoyed Toba immensely. The end of our Indonesian journey was in Berastagi, famous for its hot springs.

Bali is, of course, always multilayered. We enjoyed Surabaya for its food scene and the city life. Banjarmasin offered something different (that morning boat ride to the floating market and the motorbike ride through a jungle to reach a waterfall during rain were unforgettable).

I rarely offer accommodation recommendations, since for me they are usually a place to sleep before and after I see what the destination has to offer. But now that I’m older and, ahem, less financially strapped, I’ve begun to see accommodations as what they should be: an integral part of the travel experience.

Which is why I highly recommend Zoe’s Paradise Waterfront Hotel. (We booked through booking.com) Not only did the manager rescue us, but the hotel itself is also beautiful with stunning views and excellent service.

Lastly, the kindness of the Indonesian people cannot be overstated.

Thank you for reading. This article ended up longer than I’d expected.

Dash Ip would like to offer one final fun fact: The locals of Indonesia had an easier time understanding my wife’s English than mine. I’m a native speaker, she’s not.