Bali - getting there is half the fun (pt 1)....

The trip back from Singapore was pretty uneventful anyway, with the one bad point being as soon as I got back to the hotel in JKT I had to login to work and check to see how things were going ! The next morning tho was not fun at all. I was going over to Bali with Nina, the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-coworker who'd decided to go over with me, and as it was extreme short notice (as in, booking the fri before!) all we could get on flights were a 6:30am takeoff - which meant waking up at 3am to get there in time! So, we sleepwalk our way to the airport, and everything seems go ok right up to the point where we are taxiing out to the runway. Next thing there's an announcement: "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the captain speaking, we've discovered a problem with the flaps, so we have to go back to the terminal". We were just lucky I suppose that they found the problem then and not 5 mins later when we're trying to take off - this is Garuda after all we were flying with, who don't exactly have a stellar record when it comes to safety and, well, not crashing (3 planes in the last 3 months!). When you book at the last minute tho, beggars can't really be choosers.

Unfortunately tho, the "quick trip back to the terminal" turned out ot be a bit longer than we were anticipating. after half an hour sitting on the plane, they deplaned us and sent us off t the execs lounge for free tea/coffee/whatever we could grab. At least that way they were a bit better than Ryanair, who'd bend over backwards to try to avoid giving you anything at all if there were any delays (I remember the 5hr delay in charleroi - "get what you want in the cafe, then send the receipts off with this form to the ryanair customer service dept for a refund"). as nice as leather couches and free tea/cofee/soup/little-sandwiches-with-the-crusts-cut-off are, we were still waiting another 3hrs before we got a working plane. So, our 6:30am takeoff became a 10am take-off, and we'd been up for 7hrs already!

Things only got more fun when we got to Bali, as we were supposed to have a driver picking us up at the airport and bring us to the hotel, but there was no sign of him! after nearly 45mins of waiting and phone calls to the hotel asking where the hell h was, we finally figured it out: he was waiting at the domestic arrivals for us, but for some reason (maybe 'cos we were so late getting in) we came in through the international arrivals! It was only through me taking a bit of a wander and seeing a sign for "domestic arrivals" that we copped it! We eventually got to the hotel at about 2pm, or 11hrs after we woke up.

So, they say getting there is half the fun........