Woke up this morning feeling a bit queasy. I decided to forgo gym this morning. I couldn't risk having any accidents bending over to lift things. So when my alarm went off, I reset it for 2 hours later & went back to sleep.
Breakfast was more sedate than usual. I had an omelet with bacon on the side but none of my usual accompaniments. No fruit or waffle this morning. Back in my room I switched on my Do Not Disturb light by the door and hopped back into bed and slept some more.
Today I needed to pick up my leather jacket I was having made and planned on doing some gift shopping and replacing a couple of dodgy DVDS. I thought I might try Pips again for a massage. I didn't feel like eating lunch when I woke up, so showered & made sure I had the balance of money owing on my jacket in my purse before I left. I ordered a taxi from reception & we made our way through very dense traffic to Legian. It took forever & the stop start of the traffic made me feel even more queasy.
Finally we arrived at Garlic Lane after what felt like hours. I went into Dolphin Leather & was greeted warmly by the owners. They brought out my new jacket to try on. It was lovely & the leather was so soft. I paid the balance and left the store, hailed the 1st taxi I saw & asked to be driven back to my hotel. He didn't know where it was, so I showed him the hotel's business card & we set off. Thank God the driver wasn't one of the chatty ones who wanted to know my life story & my program for tomorrow. No, this one didn't speak unless I spoke first. And as I didn't speak, it was a quiet trip back to the hotel through the inevitable heavy traffic. I was feeling distinctly seedy. Stuff my plans, I'll do it tomorrow.
Up Mt Everest & back to my room. To the bathroom. To lose my breakfast several times over. Oh God, I'm dying. I took a Stemetil tablet, shucked my clothes & crawled back into bed and slept. For several hours. On waking, I had no appetite. So unlike me! I put a DVD on which also turned out to be a dodgy one but as I wasn't very invested in this movie, I didn't care & threw it in the bin. I felt cold so pulled the doona up & fell asleep again. I was woken at about 2:30am by loud music & someone on a microphone. WTF? Maybe it was a wedding reception? I got up to look out the window. There were people in the restaurant, but it didn't look crowded. Some men were dancing on the lawn. I don't know what's going on & I really don't care. Just shut up. The noise was unrelenting for around an hour, maybe longer but I managed to get back to sleep.
The next morning I did not wake up refreshed. I felt quite ordinary. No gym again today. I showered & went to breakfast. 2 pieces of toast was all I could manage. I felt a passing regret that I wasn't up to my usual early morning food fest.
As today was my last day, I wanted to double check that I had my room until 6pm. At reception, the lovely Dewa checked - no it hadn't been done. She rescanned my room key card, explained the extra charge which was exactly what I expected. I asked what had gone on during the night. It was a ceremony for the opening of the World Cup. She apologised that it was so noisy. Back in my room I tried on my new jacket, which was ignored yesterday & was still bagged up. I really liked it on and it looked really well finished too. Quality work and so soft. I am very happy with it. Queasy, but happy. I jumped back into bed & slept again. I seem to have slept away the last couple of days. I awoke at lunchtime & popped on a DVD. I considered going for a swim but after a glance out of my balcony window I could see that there were no loungers free. Oh well. Wet bathers in my luggage was probably not the greatest idea anyway. I should try and eat something. I wanted something stodgy & bland, so ordered a pizza through room service. When it arrived, I only managed a slice and a half. I know, not me at all! Especially with pizza.
I ran a bath, added some bath oil & soaked for half an hour. Time to start packing. Pretty much all my clothes were dirty, so I wasn't going to pack carefully. I had no problem fitting everything in. I hadn't bought much. I came across the perfume & body mist I'd bought from The Body Shop. I couldn't believe I didn't pack some bubble wrap just in case. So I popped each bottle in dirty socks & wrapped them in a tshirt. Hopefully they will survive the trip home.
I settled my bill and asked reception to order me a taxi at 7pm. I went over to the lounge area with my e-book & at 6:30pm a taxi driver came looking for me. Bali time strikes again. My driver was another racing car driver in training. He apologised about the heavy traffic. I explained that my plane didn't leave until 10pm so there was plenty of time, but my obvious hint fell on deaf ears. We weaved in & out, dodged left & right, honked & beeped & made amazing time to the airport.
My first impression, well second really, of the airport was wow! Modern inside & out. I looked up which counter I had to check in on the board - B22. When I got to B22 it was a Virgin Airline counter, but it said Sydney not Melbourne. A dilemma. Then an airport official walked past the queue & I asked if this was check in for Melbourne too? Yes. Ok, I'll wait it out then. When it was my turn I checked my boarding pass. The seat I'd chosen online was 18F - a window seat. My boarding pass said 5A. Somebody is not going to be happy, but it aint going to be me! I paid my departure tax, which had gone up to 200,000Rp. Luckily I had more money.
Then it was time to have my hand luggage scanned. The woman in front of me set off the metal detector and had to remove her shoes & put them on the conveyor belt. I set off the detector too but the only metal I had on was the underwire of my bra & that was not coming off! So I had the wand waved over me & was allowed through. However I wasn't allowed to take my hand luggage. Do you have any gel? No, I'm pretty sure I don't, but we can check. I opened my combo lock & opened my case blissfully unaware of having done anything wrong. The official fossicked through my stuff & pulled out my tube of Fisiocrem - it relieves muscular aches & sprains. Sh*t, I didn't realise I'd packed in there. But it's cream, I said. You are only allowed 100mls & this is 250. But it's nearly brand new, do you have to take it?It's more than 100mls, Madame. But it cost me 300,000Rp. That got his attention. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Give me a bribe & you can keep it. Pardon? Give me a bribe & you can keep it. Um...OK. So I opened my purse & pulled out 50,000Rp & went to give it to him. No, in here - he pointed to my case. So I dropped the note in my case & he palmed it & closed the lid. Sh*t, I think I might have just broken the law. I hope no-one saw!
I scurried off to join the queue for customs. My passport was stamped & I was allowed through departures without getting arrested. Phew! Criminal activity was giving me palpitations. And I needed to find a toilet pretty quick too. To get to the departure lounge you have to walk along a winding path through umpteen duty free shops. Some parts of the pathway wasn't very wide & shoe buckle lady & her cronies were interrogating a sales girl about a Fendi bag & completely blocking the path. I am a criminal who needs to go to the toilet desperately, so don't mess with me you MFs! I barged through the human Korean blockade & ran over the foot of someone with my case. Then I had to squeeze past a bar - I kid you not - some idiot thought it was a good idea to put a bar directly in front of departure gates which were swarming with a plane load of Japanese tourists milling around waiting to board and a few fat patrons with wheelie luggage leaning on the bar blocking my escape route. Oh, FFS! Seriously? Get out of of the f*cking way! I admit it. I was rude, I shoved my way through all the obstacles and spied Mecca on the other side. Toilets! Whoohoo! And lovely clean toilets too. Ahhhhhhh! Instant relief, no damage done. Though I do question the design of said toilets. Frosted glass cubicles? Really? You want to see the shadow of the person sitting next to you? There was an attendant in the toilets who helpfully pointed out the soap dispenser, tap and paper towel dispenser as if I were an imbecile & even held open the swing lid of the rubbish bin for my used paper towel. Was I supposed to tip? Sorry, you will have to make do with a smile.
The departure lounge chairs didn't look very comfy, so I was off to the Premier Lounge. I was conscious that I hadn't bought anything for anybody, so I stopped at a few stalls along the way & was outraged at the prices. $6USD for a pkt of peanuts I know are about 80c in the supermarket. $9USD for a big pkt of M&Ms. Not that I was looking at them as gifts, just a snack on the plane in case I get hungry. No way, Josè! So I kept walking. And walking. And walking. There were helpful signs above saying gate no. whatever 6 mins and the next sign would say 5 mins, assuming of course that it took you a minute to walk that far. Finally I found the Premier Lounge. I asked the receptionist if I had to be a business class passenger to get in or could I pay? Yes, I can pay 250,000Rp. Ok. I still had about $200 worth of rupiah which I intended on spending during my last couple of days, foiled by my stomach bug. What the hell. So I paid. Nice big comfy chairs, a few couches, one of which I claimed. There was a food & drinks station. Some of the closhes were empty, but there were some soft dinner rolls. Perfect. No butter. Not so perfect. No to any alcohol. But a can of coke would be brilliant - I need to burp. I sunk into my couch & nibbled & sipped while I posted on FB that I 'might' have just bribed a Balinese official. I read a bit, chatted a bit on FB & my flight was called. The departure gate was another 3 gates away, or 4 minutes walk, according to the sign. We waited there for about 20 mins before the call to board. I didn't rush to board because I knew I was up the front. This time we had a walkway straight onto the plane, but there was queue there too. Damn, plane is chockers. Seats 5B & C were occupied. I excused myself & they got up to let me in. The guy was nice enough to put my case in the overhead locker.
I hate flying. I'm not scared. It's just so inconvenient. Your head is not in a position of comfort to sleep properly. You have to disturb people to go to the toilet. If you move in your seat you risk oozing body parts under the arm rests. Pulling down the tray table disturbs the person in the seat in front who gets revenge by lowering their seat back so your tray table now cuts off the circulation in your midriff. If someone farts, several rows of passengers are disturbed. And if there is a crying baby on board, it's disturbing the whole plane & we all secretly plot about ways to kill it. C'mon, you know you do!
We are getting fed. Straight up. I chose the chicken but only had a few mouthfuls. The bread roll was sweet, yuk. I spent a good 5 mins struggling to peel open a cup of water before I realised it came with a straw you could poke through the seal. Doh! But score! A mini kitkat. That I did eat! I was tired but couldn't sleep. I watched an episode of The Mentalist then a couple of episodes of VEEP that I already had on my iPad. I tried to sleep again but wasn't very successful.
We arrived in Melbourne 30 mins early. I was gobsmacked not to have to queue to go through customs. First time ever. I debated whether to buy some duty free alcohol but couldn't be bothered. It took a while for my case to appear on the turnstile. I changed my nothing to declare to something to declare as I didn't eat a pkt of peanuts I'd bought with me, but they didn't care. I got waved through.
Outside it was dark & freezing. It was a long walk to my car in the cold but I made great time on the freeway and was at home and in bed by 8am. Ah, I love my own bed. I could do with some new soft comfy huggy pillowy pillows though....
Thanks for reading & your kind comments.
Until next time. xx