Surabaya is on the east coast of Java, and is Indonesia's second largest city.  The city is named for two Indonesian gods, the Sura (shark) and the Baya (large crocodile).  The two can be seen engaged in combat at various locations around the city.  If you make it to Surabaya be sure to visit the zoo, which is simply outstanding.  It's nicely laid out, and the animals are well taken care of.  In addition to housing a great variety of the typical inhabitants of zoos (elephants, gorillas, etc.), they also have the largest group of Komodo dragons in captivity in the world.  The Komodo Dragon is the world's largest lizard.  They grow to 10 feet in length and can weigh up over 350lbs, though many are only about two thirds that size.  They are very fast and incredibly powerful, and manage to kill a few people each year.  Food for the animals is sold at the zoo, and feeding the animals is perfectly legal.  I was thoroughly impressed with the dexterity of an elephant in picking up individual peanuts with it's trunk.  The Surabaya Zoo is not to be missed.

Getting to Surabaya was a bit of a challenge.  We flew on Garuda, the domestic carrier.  They are a good airline,  with modern aircraft and good service.  However, their customers are overwhelmingly Indonesian.  As a consequence, the seating arrangements are sized for Indonesians.  The seats are placed very closely together, which is probably fine for 5 ft. 5 inch Indonesians, but created more than a few problems for this 6 ft. American.  I literally was not able to sit straight up, with my legs forward.  The seat pitch was several inches shorter than the length of my thigh.  Fortunately, the center seat was unoccupied, so I could shift my legs over into that space.  I'd hate to be on of those flights when every seat was full. Yet claustrophobic seat placements were the least of our worries.  Things were to get much more interesting.

On our way back from Ambon, we had a two hour lay over in Surabaya.  We deplaned, and wandered around the airport for a while.  Unfortunately, the calls for reboarding were being given in Bahasa Indonesia, rather than English, and we missed ours.  We then went furiously scampering around to various planes that were ready for departure, banging on the doors to see if they were our flight.  As the planes were all the same, we had a tough time of it.  We went through four planes before finding ours, and felt like big idiots throughout the process.