We flew out of Brisbane with Air Australia (Strategic) on New Years Eve.
Flight was great, seats more comfortable than Virgin and Air Asia, and because of a favourable tail wind we did not have to re fuel at Darwin so a direct flight made the trip more enjoyable.
Landed at Denpasar airport at 2:35 pm and straight through VOA but "Mr Happy" at the immigration counter must have been having a bad day and chastised old Hoolz and Mama Jo for both of us daring to approaching his little wooden castle together.
He accepted our passports but then made Mama Jo return back to the front of the line. I noticed that other couples at various counters did not seem to have the same problem...so Mr Happy grudgingly processed my passport etc, returned it to me, motioned me to move on, and beckoned mama Jo forward...what Mr Happy did not realise was that the d%$ck h#&d had mixed up our passports and processed mama Jo's as mine and mine as mama Jo's..so much for observation and security.
Straight out to customs and after waiting 20 minutes to collect our bags at carousel #3 suddenly found out that over half of our flights bags had been put on carousel #1...2 carousel's at once, we sure are privileged! ..but next time tell some one!
Finally cleared everything and outside in under 30 minutes from landing.
As soon as we walked outside we were greeted by hundreds and hundreds of people waving placards at me..they all had their names and hotels on the placards...it was obvious they all knew we were coming back to Bali again...so I did a couple of circuits of the gated area giving them all the papal wave until I spied our trusted driver and friend Wayan Sunarta.
Outside the airport is a bit chaotic and can understand newbie's being intimidated. We followed Wayan along the fully paved sheltered walkway to a designated pick up spot... he went to his car, drove around and picked us up.
Off to the Masa Inn Poppies1 and being New Years Eve with road closures in force our trusted driver took us through back streets until we ended up in Jl Bukunsari, past the Polisi, turn right and drive past the legendary "Pub" and bingo dropped off at Beamo Corner, then just walked down Poppies1 from Jl Legian... from the time we landed until we arrived at the hotel was just over an hour.
Word certainly travelled fast that we were back!
Thousands and thousands of people were on the beach waiting for our return and as soon as we checked into our hotel the rejoicing started with a massive fireworks display all along the beach for as far as the eye could see and continued on until around 3am.
Morning has broken, cheers for now, off for breakfast!
Hoolz