Celebrity World Blog

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- President Obama is leaving Indonesia approximately two hours earlier than had been scheduled -- a realization by the Whit House that a volcanic ash cloud could prevent Air Force One from taking off.

The president's scheduled as moved up its event times and canceled a wreath-laying at Kalibata Heroes Cemetery, the burial site of veterans of the Indonesian National Revolution, somewhat akin to Arlington National Cemetery in the United States.

Already, the trip was supposed to be less than 24 hours, with Obama arriving late afternoon Tuesday and leaving midday Wednesday. The trip was shoehorned into a jam-packed 10-day Asia trip, between three days spent in India and economic meetings in South Korea and Japan that start Thursday.

The president finally made it to Indonesia Tuesday, his home for four years of his youth, after two previously scheduled trips there were canceled because of domestic events -- final talks on the health care bill, and then the Gulf oil spill.

The volcanic ash had looked like it might keep him from Indonesia altogether for a third straight time. But with most of his schedule remaining as is, the president will have stopped in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, an increasingly important player in Asia, where he will speak to his personal biography at an address to a large crowd at the University of Indonesia. The future president moved to Jakarta when he was 6, after his divorced mother remarried an Indonesian, and lived here until he was 10.
Read More:Obama to Shorten Indonesia Trip