Leg 1 - Brisbane to Bali

After much planning, stressing, sweating and panicking – the day finally arrives, we are heading on another adventure. We have quit our jobs, sold most of what we didn’t need or couldn’t take with us and feel, well nowhere near ready!

It all begins with 5 or 6 hours of final packing things to send back the UK (an ever growing, seemingly never ending task – last count was just over 100kg of stuff in boxes!). With 2 and a half hours to go until we needed to be at the airport, the shipping company sends through our final quotation – which of course needs to be printed out, signed and mailed back to them with a complete manifest of everything we are sending… with no functional printer at home, or access to one I set off to rapidly get a hard copy whilst Lisa frantically lists every bubble-wrapped trinket she can identify.

By the time we have it ready to roll, have our Bali bags packed and everything is locked up awaiting the taxi – it is an hour and a half before our flight leaves… Fortunately our taxi then shows up, unfortunately our flight is at 6pm so we are battling rush hour. Despite this happening pretty much every time we fly anywhere and vowing to not do it to ourselves again, once again here we are – bathed in a deep sweat and anxiously watching the digital clock tick by as we sit going nowhere fast…

Very fortunately for us, the new airport link tunnel opened a couple of weeks ago and as soon as we make it inside it is plain sailing to the International Terminal – T-minus 1:15 to take off. We breeze through check-in (when you arrive that late there is either usually no queue – or the staff are pulling you out of the line as the flight is closing) – lightly jog through customs, scamp towards the gate just in time to hear the boarding announcement for our rows! Who likes hanging about at airports anyways… We battle through the annoying tourists with their equally annoying offspring and make it to our seats, content and already exhausted.

The flight, was dull. Lisa slept, I drank wine and watched sports. The woman in front of us read Fifty Shades of Grey but I couldn’t see how much she was enjoying it fortunately.

We arrived at Denpasar Airport in a bit of a daze. It was now midnight our time and 10:30pm local time. Stepping out of the plane it was immediately a poor choice to fly in chinos and a hoodie – the humidity licked my face like a blind Labrador. We battled to the first shuttle bus (which reminded me of a school bus, before they used to maintain them at all – torn seats, mild smell of urine, juddering engine) and it was here it dawned we were not in Kansas anymore. Pouring off the bus (having narrowly avoided other airport vehicles by inches a few times) we rushed to get in line for our Indonesian Visa. Unfortunately we had been beaten by a dozen other pasty tourists, but the queue moved quickly and fortunately we were well prepared with our $50USD fee.

Onwards to the surly border patrolmen – another breeze despite our fears. Then to baggage claim and our first but probably not last brush with daylight robbery! We failed to question the official man with PORTER across his chest gladly helping us grab our bag from the carousel, then commanding control of our baggage trolley and swiftly heading for the exit. All of a sudden, waves of fear came over me that I hadn’t been watching him 100% of the time and he slipped a pound of cocaine in the front pocket – then his mate jumped on board to help him usher bemused and tired tourists out of the way as we cut through the queues like, well obnoxious tourists. The elderly, young, DISABLED – it didn’t matter and soon we were through the gate and heading down the hallway. Halfway there, we stopped and shared an awkward moment or five as it dawned on me this was no complimentary service for the English backpacker and I was reaching into my wallet grabbing 50,000 rupiah. “Sorry I haven’t got anything smaller” I foolishly uttered, as it dawned on the two of them I had no idea what value this strange crisp note held. “Two, two” he gestured – ah, ok one each then. I handed them over – he pockets them both and points to his buddy. Defeated, I reach back into my bag and reluctantly hand over what seems like an astronomical fee (100,000 of anything seems astronomical to me) – and we set of to find our driver.

To be fair – the porters did assist us in getting through the chaos in lightning fast speed and finding our driver, but to save $20 and the subsequent anger at myself for falling for the first con off the plane, I would have pushed that old bloke out of his wheelchair myself.

Our pre-arranged driver Gusti met us at the gate – simply with a sign saying LISA in giant letters. When you consider there were another 30 or so drivers clamoring for space and shouting at bemused arrivers it was a wonder we found him. Gusti was rather friendly and led us to his nicely air conditioned wagon, and we hit the road for our roughly 90 minute drive to Ubud. Now, I had heard that the driving in Indonesia and Bali in particular was interesting to put it mildly – but nothing can prepare you for seeing it in action. The centre lines are merely there for decoration, people on scooters dive inside and outside (often simultaneously) the cars, hardly anyone indicates, junctions are a free-for-all, traffic lights either don’t work or are ignored and the horn is used as a friendly indication that you are approaching! We were glad Gusti seemed to be relatively tame in comparison (or at least he is whilst chauffeuring) and felt somewhat at ease in the backseat trying to take in some of the sights, but by this point it was midnight, dark and everything closed. 

Room Flowers

We arrived at the Lotus Limisan Villas after what seemed about an hour – and were met by Trish, our Australian hostess and her Indonesian hubby Wiko (both around 40 and complete hippies). We were whisked past the pool to our amazing looking Joglo – complete with traditionally carved, century old ceiling and promptly collapsed. We were glad to have made it, but upon noticing that the hut itself was actually almost open air (imagine a Balinese hut structure with four walls that don’t connect to it all the way up – but a roof that comes down past the top of the walls) we nervously turned out the lights and proceeded to have an awful, awful nights sleep.