Flew Garuda, Perth, Jakarta ( for a wedding ) Dempasar and Perth. No
problems, we like Garuda, they are a far better airline than they were, new planes, not too bad tucker, great Bloody Mary's which tend not to contain too much tomato juice. They used to have canned Bloody Mary's which were a poor substitute for the real thing but the genuine article is back along ( believe it or not )with metal cutlery.
On the leg to Jakarta there is a stop over in Dempasar, we could either sit on the plane or stretch the legs, seemed a bit of a novelty sitting in a departure lounge instead of walking out.
I tend to try for a bit of humour in my JBR's, the first smile I got was in Jakarta arrivals. We apologise for the inconvenience,this convenience is being under developed. (Does this mean you do it on the floor when it's finished ?) Second smile came from a conversation
with a policeman on the Sunday morning. What happens is this, we were on the 14th floor of a hotel in central Jakarta, open the curtains in the morning, look out anytime and there is traffic everywhere, six lanes of car park. Opened the curtains Sunday morning, no traffic anywhere and the divided highway is chocker block full of people, walking, jogging, cycling, playing soccer, pushchairs, prams, un motorised scooters, skate boards dogs on leads and people skipping. I thought there had been a revolution seemed the people had control of the streets and there were not hundreds but thousands in a continous never ending stream. An enquiry at breakfast disclosed the fact that central Jakarta is traffic free 6am to midday Sunday mornings.
We went down there and joined the walkers, had a lovely time, people asking where we were from, really nice ambience, up the road a bit there was a mob of young folk obviously massing for a demonstration march.They were very noisy and at one stage were doing the Gandam thing. So I asked this policeman with a hat peak full of gold braid with matching shoulder tabs that looked like the angle deck on an aircraft carrier what it was all about,"It is an anti corruption march,if you give them enough money they will probably go away."
Not funny ? Well at least I try !
So good to get to Bali on the Monday morning, airport still a bit of a hassle, our driver calls the new building The Crab. We were in Novotel TB for lunch, it is so good to get there, the welcomes are wonderful, took us half an hour to get from the reception to the restaurant on the beach, all the staff swooning over the missus, dont worry about me dear I'll handle it.
More to come if my humour suits you.