The last few days have been hectic to say the least. Packing up at Penang, getting ready for our flights, then flying here to Bali. All a huge effort but we made it.
Last Thursday, Friday, Saturday it was a case of separating what would stay in Penang and what we’d take back to Townsville. Sounds easy, I know but it certainly didn’t turn out that easy. All our gifts had to be packed. Six times Shane changed her mind about which undies to take. I just kept getting confused as to what was the “staying in Penang” pile and the “going back to Townsville” pile. Oh the pain of it all! At the last hour there was a snap decision to change bags and take one of the big bags instead of leaving it behind. That alleviated matters a bit until we found more to bring back (‘groan’). Eventually we delivered both “staying in Penang” bags and our 2 new expensive pillows (bought in Penang) to our mates downstairs for storage and we were headed for the airport.
The flight with Jetstar was a two leg affair. First leg was Penang to Singapore (departing about 9.30 – arriving about 11pm). Because my knee forces me to walk so slow with the walking stick I informed Jetstar that I had this disability. Normally all that does is allows us to get aboard first so we don’t hold up others. Not with Jetstar. First they thought it would be funny to separate Shane and I on both legs of the journey. I tend to rely on her if I need help getting up and walking etc. We didn’t notice this until we were actually aboard the plane to Singapore and about to sit down in separate rows. We were not happy but as the trip is only a bit over an hour we didn’t say much (I just sat with a scowl and groaned at the cabin crew). Then there was the so called ‘meal’ included in our ticket price. It turned out to be a stale chicken & lettuce sandwich. Yuk. At Singapore we were instructed not to get off but to wait till last so as not to delay anyone else. When we were finally allowed to alight there was a wheelchair waiting for me and I was forced to use it. While this may have been helpful it sucks when all they want to do is push you to a room to wait (6 hours in this case) without anywhere to lie down and rest etc. So as soon as our attendant pissed for a break off so did we.
Singapore airport is a great place to wander. The orchid displays they put on are wonderful just for the sightseeing alone. We love the place. But with a wheelchair it isn’t that easy to get about but we handled it. We first headed straight to the food section for a feed. By this time it was almost midnight and everything was closing. All the food outlets we approached were either closed, closing, out of food or only had dried up crap. Then we saw a Starbucks! They managed a decent coffee, a chicken pie, a nice cake for Shane and a clean table.
Now fed it was on to the Jetstar desk to fix the seating on the 2nd leg. Again Jetstar thought separating us was funny. This time though it was by 24 rows (not just 1 as before). After some begging and pleading the “best we can offer” was two aisle seats on either side of the row. Happy for small mercies we accepted. (Remember this for later.) Seating fixed we thought we’d head back to the lounge room where we’d been left in time to not be noticed as missing. For the next 4 hours we tried to sleep/rest in uncomfortable chairs in front of a TV showing repeating tales of “world’s best restaurants” until the attendant showed up to roll me to the next departure gate. Things went smoothly but then we got a surprise when they shut the doors of the plane with available seats everywhere. 2 rows in front of me was an entire bench of 3 seats empty! The same just 2 rows behind Shane. A quick look back and I spotted empty seats scattered throughout the plane yet the arseholes of Jetstar reckoned “the best we can offer is two aisle seats on either side of the row”. Pig’s bum! Shane had a natter to one of the attendants who took pity on me and as soon as we took off she physically helped me move to a vacant row with Shane where we could stretch out a bit. I love that woman. The final result was the beautiful sunrise shots from over Bali as morning broke.
This is our 3rd attempt to see Bali. The first time we had to cancel when Shane had to have surgery for her melanoma. Second time we actually got on land but this was after I’d had the fall that caused my current knee problems and we spent the entire day at Kuta Hospital. We’d now been 24 hours without sleep but we were in Bali at last. In the terminal the airline attendant wheeled me through the system only to find that once outside the shuttle bus from the hotel we’d ordered wasn’t there . Great start. Now this, our 3rd attempt starts off with no shuttle bus as ordered. Good start! What more could happen? Well you could try that the hotel wasn’t expecting us so early (despite confirming that a shuttle bus would pick us up at 7:45am) so we couldn’t go to our room before 2pm. Ah well. It could have been worse. At least they DID have our booking. So we left our luggage in their safe keeping and went to Kuta Beach to kill time and to but our regulation Bali t-shirts. By the time we got into our room and got some sleep (all of an hour or so) we’d been up for 36 hours. We got up to have some tea then hit the sack and we both slept unbroken for 12 hours solid.
It’s now Tuesday and I’m typing this to fill time till we go on a tour at 8am. I’ll try to post this tonight and report back shortly on more of our Bali escapades before hitting Townsville.
By the way – Here’s some pix of Bali from flying in over the cloud covered mountains to the memorial for the Sari Club bombing victims (and me in my new Bali T-shirt/singlet).
Cheers
Garry
