DAY 10 - FINAL DAY : We both woke up depressed, we don't want to go home.......everyone else is smiling except us.............ok now before we do anything we have to pack our bags.......... Travel space bags out and fitting as much in as it would allows us...... Brenda has to take everything out of its packaging...I told her not to buy that quiltcover.............All the shampoos/conditioners/bath gels that was complimentary from the Hotel and that we had been taking turns in collecting ...Brenda was unable to fit it all in and I couldn't take it either..........so what do we do.........no worries I had some toys, pencils, books , nail polishes and anything else we couldn't fit in our suitcases to give to the Beach Ladies..........they were very appreciative and they thought it was Christmas with the 3 big bags of items that they shared amongst them. All the Hotel goodies we gave to our Laundry Lady Sarah who was also very appreciative of the goods. Ok I said to Brenda you got your quiltcover and there is something that I want, but we have to venture into Kuta Square, I promised her we would just go into the one shop I needed to go to and that was it we would be out of the taxi and into the shop then out of the shop and into the taxi.
I was on the search for a original snake skin handbag and saw in our many trips past the shop they had a sale so this is where I must go. On arrival to the shop I found the bag waiting for me to buy it ...and with 20% off I could not go home without it made from genuine python for the cost of 340,000= $47 and the matching wallet 135,000 = $18 I was happy now.........
Back to the Hotel for the last time for our final packing ...after lots of swearing and sitting on bags more swearing, success we have them closed......We asked to have the bags weighed just to prepare ourselves in case we had to pay excess package........... our total bags came to 90kgs including our take on board luggage which consisted of our DVD's ...well thats not too bad we thought combined weight...no use worrying about it until we get to the airport. We had to ensure that when lifting the hand luggage bag up into the luggage compartment on the plane we had to make it look as though they was light......as this contained all out DVD's plus anything else little that we could shove in..no problem we just hope to go they dont weight these ........just keep smiling and being vague. which we did pretty well naturally.....
Having our final drink on the verandah overlooking the beach on sunset......talking about when can we do this again............waiting for our airport transport which unfortunately arrived on time........bags in the van and off we went to the airport.
Ok ......now look for the friendliest AP staff to check in to..........hummmmmm I'm over this I said lets just line up here........trying to make small talk with the lady behind the counter she requested my bag be lifted up ...holding my breath she says sorry it is 36kgs we are only allowed a maximum of 32kgs in the bag, you will have to remove 4kgs, how am I going to do this.......oh just buy another bag and remove 4kgs and come back for your boarding passes. To our surprise Brendas bag was only 30kgs......Luckily Brenda still had money as I didn't even have enough left to buy a bag which was 100,000= $13...off to the chairs to remove 4kgs out of my suitcase, thank goodness they didn't weigh our hand luggage.........ok back in line the smiling young man called us forward in the queue and weighed my suitcase and softbag the lady checked that all was ok and provided us with our boarding passes.......wiping the sweat off my brow ...all that was left was to ensure we handled our hand luggage with ease........
Ok so we are now on board and the hostess was keen to assist Brenda lift her hand luggage into the overhead compartments and Brenda was keen that she didn't dare touch her bag...........deep breath and up they go...........we are seated and laughing about it.
Arrived in Sydney on time..........customs was not too painful except Brenda who had wood items plus those banana leaf photo albums declared did not even have to open her bags...... me...........well they chose to inspect my wooden items, unwrapping all the sealed wooden boxes which contained tea/coffee and my prize wooden framed paintings...lucky for me I had sprayed them all before leaving, not sure if it helped ....but everything was ok, even my snakeskin handbag which I was using as though it was my everyday bag that I had had for years wasn't a problem. No problems with the hundreds of DVD's they didn't even check this bag.
Next time I think I will look into securing space on a container , as I always arrive home saying I wish I had of bought this and that and ohhhhh those lamps.... And those statues ...BRENDA put that on the list...Container space. ...........and maybe next time go during the cooler months of June/July.
Other then that I would like to thank my long time friend Brenda for making this a memorable holiday with lots and lots of laughter.....much better going with a friend then family.
And thanks to all the valuable information we took with us provided by this wonderful forum which I will regularly visit to keep me in touch with that magical place called Bali.
Thank you to those who have followed our holiday by reading our JBR.
If you wish to contact me please email me on dfsm@pacific.net.au
Zelda