Transiting Singapore

I got into my Transit hotel room at 1:40am :)

The transit hotel at singapore is great! I got up at about 7am and wandered around the departure area of terminal 1. It is fun to watch all the people scampering about when you are not (immediately) going anywhere - And when you get bored of that, you can go back to bed!

I found a great food place airside whe3re I had Nasi Lemak for breakfast and Chicken curry for lunch both times washed down by the yummy, unreasonably sweet, singapore coffee.

And, as good things come to an end, I checked out at noon to see abouit retrieving my baggage.

Because you cant check baggage through on these cheap airlines and as the next flight was from a different terminal, I had to go collect a bag that arrived on the carousel 12 hours earlier :) The bag is meant to end up at the "lost and found" counter where it is taken after it has been around the carousel enough times on its own for the staff to realise that nobody loves it.

Sadly, the baggage tag had fallen off and the exercise ended up taking an hour.. Thats OK, my flight to Perth isnt till 3:50.

I weighed all the bags and.. Big bag 23kg carry on bag 12kg! other carry on bag ?kg Laptop bag kg.

I had bought a luggage upgrade to 25kg and so I stuffed 2kg from the carry on bag into the big bag and stuffed everything heavy I could find and fit into my pockets in case they weighed my cary on stuff.

Check in went just fine except that the flight has been delayed till 6pm, sigh. Its 2:30pm now so its another 3.5 hours - Oh well, at least the airport has free wireless internet and I have found a power point.

So, that is it from the budget terminal at Singapore...

Slowly slowly home

Well, by the time I had finished packing to leave Bali, the wind had dropped to a level where people started paragliding again... Typical isnt it?

As seems to be usual, I checked in with much too much stuff.

My big bag with my paraglider and other stuff was 23kg, which is never good on a budget flight.. I heard the check in girl talk to her collegue in indonesian, mentioning the number 23 but he decided to take pity on me.. I dont want to imagine how much is in my 3 carry on bags :) I guess 15kg.

So, it is just over an hour till I board my flight to Singapore. I should be at Singapore at 00:45 and, like Nadya, I am booked into the Airside hotel in singapore to await the 15:50 flight tomorrow.
In 24 hours from now, I should be almost back in Perth.. It is the long way home!

Thats it for tonight...

Wind wind and more wind

There is a tropical cyclone somewhere in the souh Chine sea.

This is the fifth day when the wind howling across Bali has made it un-flyable

Sob

Flying in Bali

I have settled down to a routing of flying, sleeping and eating in Bali.

I have settled down to the local pricing of things in this corner of Bali

These are my essential daily expenses

Room - A$ 7.50
Motorbike hire A$ 4.00
Petrol A$ 1.50
Breakfast A$ 1.00
Evening meal A$ 2.00
Water A$ 0.50
Laundry A$ 0.50

So, a minimum of A$17 a day, if you want to be mobile

My daily luxury expenses are.

Phone credit A$ 2.00
Internet A$ 1.00
Drinks on launch A$ 2.00
Setup/Packing A$ 2.50

So, I spend an additional A$7.50 on extras

This doesnt include entertainment expenses, but at this crannie of the island, there really isnt anything to do.

Breakfast is the largest meal of the day, usually consisting of..

Rice
3 serves veggies
Boiled egg
fried tahu (soya bean curd)
fried tempe (fermented soya bean cake)
Chicken
Sambal
Ice tea or hot coffee

All for A$1 - its a steal, and keeps me going till 5pm

The paragliding expenses of A$4.50 could be avoided easily.. But the women of the area make their whole living selling drinks and snacks. And likewise, the guys make theirs setting up, helping launch and packing. They are real experts at what they do and it would be mean not so support the locals.

I have another 6 days like this, I leave for Australia, via Singapore, on Thursday.

I have tried to make a booking at the airside hotel, 2 times! but so far, no reply :(

That is it from Bali - If anybody is still reading this :)

Singapore Airport

Well, I am in Changi airport for a few hours and then home again. It will be nice to be home except the freezing weather, Clive still being in Bali and $1.50 petrol!
I stayed at the airside hotel here which is a godsend when you have a 15 hour stopover, now I'm off to have breakfast and check out the duty free.

Back in Bali

I am back in Bali but all alone today :(

Nadya made her first paraglider flight on Thursday at Timbis beach.

But sadly, she had to return to Australia last night, for work :(

Nadya's Mum is still here till Monday, but she has gone diving for the day.

So, my missions for the day are to move hotel, and weather permitting, do some flying at Timbis myself :)

Nadya's Mum will be back tonight and hopefully, will be able to get a tandem paraglider flight in tomorrow.

That is it from paradise, well hot paradise

..Clive - No pictures today!

Hello Mataram

We've finished our dive trip on Gilli Trawangan and have moved on to Mataram the capital of Lombok.
It's a small, dusty city with little to recommend it to most folks but we kind of like it. The food is really good here and the people friendly. We are also going to visit a friend of ours- the guide who has been up Mt Rinjani with Clive 3 times and grandma and I once each. He lives in a tiny village where he helps his dad grow rice and raises fighting chickens.

Mum is staying in Trawangen for 2 more days to do some more diving and taking the slow boat to bali. She's loving the diving and has become quite at home underwater over the past few days!

Still Diving

The internet is painfully slow from here.
So, just a couple of pictures taken while diving
Love the shark!

Hello from the Gilli Islands

Hello People,

It's taken a while to get around to writing a blog this time as we've been on the move in one way or another for a while now. The flight from Turkey to Bali was too long with all the stopover time and we just couldn't get to sleep on the planes so we were so tired when we got to Bali. The next day, Clive picked Michelle up from the airport at midnight so it was another late sleep. Then on Saturday it was off to Gilli Trawangan in Lombok, another half days travelling.

Sunday was our first diving day. Mum hadn't dived since she got her liscence in Perth last December but she did just fine.
It was also Clive's birthday for the second time in a row on Gilli Trawangan so we went for a delicious japanese meal-sashimi, agadashi tofu, teriaki chicken, tempura and grilled baby eggplant- Yum! Topped off with banoffee pie and Arak Attack cocktails for dessert.

Of course we have been eating the local cuisene too- mee goreng, ple ching can cun, urap-urap, satay ayam to name a few.
A new popular Indonesian dessert is Terang Bulan(full moon) which is a fluffy pancake filled with chocolate, peanuts, mild cheese and sweetened condensed milk and folded ovr and smothered in butter. The cheese is flavourless but adds a nice texture. You need 4 people to eat one because it is not that big but SO filling. Mum loved it and even had the extra bit I couldn't fit in.

The diving has been nice so far. The things of note we've seen are a baby shark, two black frogfish, two pretty nudibranchs, a lazy turtle and the most whopping big cuttlefish I've ever seen. It was about 70cm long and it let us swim right up to it before reversing off in a huff.
We dived on a wreck today which had heaps of fish all over it but there are heaps of fish pretty much everywhere!

Picture.. Dive boat viewed from the water while waiting to be picked up :)

Another perfect day in paradise...