JAKARTA, Sept 7 — What was meant to be a week-long honeymoon in Bali turned into an unexpected ordeal for a young Malaysian couple after volcanic ash from Anak Krakatau disrupted their journey home, leaving them stranded in Indonesia for five extra days with limited funds.

Amir Hamzah, 29, a factory worker from Kedah, and his wife, Fatin Zulaikha Azizal, also 29, who works for a private company, flew from Bali’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport at 8.40pm on Saturday to Jakarta for their 8.30am connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur the next morning.

Amir and his wife were due to return to Malaysia on Sunday but found themselves stuck at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport after their connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur was repeatedly delayed and eventually cancelled.

“We thought we would just sleep at the airport for a few hours and then take the morning flight home. We never thought we would end up being stuck here for days,” Amir, who was travelling overseas for the first time, told Bernama.

They had already cleared immigration when the departure information screen showed their flight was delayed, with the departure time pushed back several times before it was eventually cancelled.

The disruption came as volcanic ash from Anak Krakatau forced Indonesian authorities to temporarily close Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and seven other airports, affecting about 150,000 passengers and 467 flights as of Sunday night.

After spending almost 24 hours at Soekarno-Hatta, the couple were informed by Garuda Indonesia that the earliest available flight was on Friday, Sept 11 — five days after their scheduled return.

“When I saw Friday, I was like, ‘Friday? What are we going to do here for another five days?’ We only prepared enough money for our honeymoon and to go home on Sunday,” he said.

He said buying replacement tickets would cost considerably more, while a refund for their cancelled flight would take several days to process.

“We were not told about any compensation, and from what we understood, there would be no compensation because the cancellation was due to force majeure.

“We had just got married, so of course, during the honeymoon we spent a bit more. We initially booked a budget hotel near the airport, but when we started calculating the cost of accommodation and food for another five days, we became worried that the money we had left would not be enough,” he said.

Concerned about how they would manage, Amir contacted Bernama’s Jakarta correspondent for assistance, and the couple were subsequently given temporary accommodation while waiting for help from their family in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, in Malaysia, 31 Jakarta-bound flights scheduled throughout Sunday were cancelled following the temporary closure of Soekarno-Hatta, including 21 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, according to Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd.

Anak Krakatau, located in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, began erupting at 11.07pm local time on Friday, with Indonesian authorities reporting volcanic ash reaching about 6,000 metres on the Java side and plumes of up to 15,000 metres towards Sumatra and parts of Banten province. — Bernama