[East/Central Indonesia] Day 01 / 27th May 2006 - To Bali

The wall clock showed 8am.

Darn.

Brushed my teeth, kept the brush and toothpaste in the toiletries bag. I lingered on still, for I figured that I could still make it in time if I take a cab down. In truth, I was hoping that there would be some additional injection into my finances. The early signs looked bleak - Dad was nowhere to be seen, and there seemed to be an air of nonchalence in the house.

Then Mum explained the reason for Dad's absence; he had gone to withdraw money for me.

I thanked them both under my breath - I might not need to swim back home after all.

After more restless pacing in and out of the bedroom, to check and double-check on stuff, Dad came back and handled me some cash, plus the Supp card that I though had not been renewed. I guess my spending had been quite atrocious that Dad withheld the card from me till the time when he deemed that I needed it the most.

Said my goodbyes, to Mum, to Dad (something that caught him off-guard I think; at that moment, I just wished the moment to leave could be delayed...) , and to Grand-Dad. Decided that bus would definitely be a cheaper alternative that would ensure that I arrive later than the agreed time, I flagged for a cab. By then, Jenn had SMS-ed me, and Naga had given me a missed call.

Sped down AYE and reached Harbourfront in good time. Too good a time, I realised. Headed to McDonalds' for breakfast.

McMuffin for my last meal. Hah. Sounds pathetic.

Even after breakfast, there was still time to kill. Hanged around - caught sight of Fizah who was bringing her students to Sentosa, and went forward to say 'hi.' Such a coincidence!

Headed to the ticketing area for the ferry to Batam. Checked out the schedule - 1050hrs would be the next ferry - while waiting for Naga and MD. Naga came shortly though, and we just stood at a corner waiting for Da Man, jokingly wondering if he had decided to walk to Harbourfront from his place (haha)...

And then Da Man arrived. Boy, his bags were HUGE.

In no time, we had changed some money as well as bought the ferry tickets - the tickets were two-way, so that meant we could possibly stop by Batam on our way back before heading for home.

While the Dragon and Da Man were away changing some Rupiah, my fingers got to work:


The Adidas shoe bag and the Nike bag - My luggage


Naga's stuff


MD's stuff

(Dun be fooled by what you see - MD's stuff appeared small because I had to stand a bit farther to capture everything he had. That reddish package was actually a toy keyboard that Pelé, one of our friends from Palu'e, had requested from MD.)

Very Soon, we were on our way. Checked in at the Customs, stopped by DFS for some fags, then boarded the BatamFast ferry. The ride was pretty uncomfortable, though the ride took probably like an hour. Things accomplished on the ferry include: sorting out the air tickets money, glancing through the Palu'e list that MD brought along, and sleep - a very uncomfortable one that left me in beads of sweat when I woke up.

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Batam - Very close to Singapore

Reached Batam at 1205hrs SGT, meaning its 1105hrs Batam time. Clearing of Customs presented little problems, and we took a cab to look for Pelé at his rented place in Nagoya. On the way, we passed by the place where MD said he first made friends with the Flores people.

We came to this place, a shop selling food on the ground floor and renting its rooms in the upper floor to people like Pelé, who come from other parts of Indonesia for employment. We met other people from Flores - Edo, Sileh, and names which I had forgotten. Pelé was still at work and would be back only at around 12+. MD asked our hosts if we could be led to somewhere that we could possibly buy some stuff like sunblock lotion and all, and we were duly brought to a supermarket owned by Indonesian Chinese (surprise). Didn't manage to find what we wanted, although we bought other miscellenous stuff. A trip to a large department store brought similar results. We trudged back to the shop to continue our wait.

Pelé came back, and went for a shower - MD duly informed us of Pelé's preference of presenting a neat, well-groomed image, as well as the tendency for people to wait for transport of any kind, particularly the flights at the airport. MD went off on his own to buy some food for the journey - beancurd braised in sweet dark soy sauce as well as some tahu goreng. We finally got going at around 1315hrs - two cabs would take us to the Batam airport...

... But not before Pelé managed to drop by the place of one of his girlfriends to pass her something as well as bidding farewell.

*Apparently, he had a couple of girlfriends, and there's 2 of them who worked at the same place and lived within close proximity of each other. Pelé had taken great pains to prevent himself from being exposed - he had a couple of mobile phones with him (at least three), and I guessed that each phone contains a SIM card and contacts that are unique to each girlfriend - one girlfriend would thus be unable to find out about the other girlfriends. We had great fun watching him fumbling with his various phones as he tried to communicate with his numerous beaus for the next few days till we reach Palu'e. One of his phones was the old Ericsson type of phone, with the battery held in place by strings of rubber bands =D*

Reached Batam Domestic Airport and checked in - time check, 1340 hrs. Not bad timing considering that our plane, which was scheduled to leave at 1400hrs, left at 1500hrs instead. Our first filght of the day brought us to Jakarta - venue of our transit flight to Bali.

*As we learnt later, a lot of domestic flights would transit at Jakarta, especially if one is getting from one geographical end of the country to another.*

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Touched down in a little over 80 minutes. The airport in Jakarta was pretty spartan - air-condition was limited to areas like the waiting lounges and the shops; other areas were kept open if they could be done so. The next flight was scheduled to leave Jakarta for Denpasar at 1650hrs, and again we were kept waiting.

One hour and a few fags later, no sign of our flight. Off went Naga and I to buy some chewing gum - the previous flight had descended too quickly for our liking, and I ended up with a painful throb in my head, while Naga's ears were very much stuck and couldn't hear much.

The TV in the lounge was showing some music programme; we had learnt that Heavy Metal is hot in Indonesia, from the walls that were fully plastered with posters of some concerts back in Batam. Nonetheless, an interesting observation was that, the singer and the rest of the band were the only ones seen gyrating and grooving to the music - however heavy the band gotten, the rest of the audience just stood there.

One knows that the flight will be SERIOUSLY DELAYED when the airline stuff at the airport starts to wheel out refreshments that were seemingly meant for consumption on the flight to passengers in the waiting lounge. Almost everyone consumed their entitlement heartily - the three of us chose to head somewhere else for dinner.

Our choices were limited. Eventually, we settled on this cafe that served relatively expensive cooked food. The meat eaters ordered rice and Beef in Soto that contained coconut milk.

After dinner, we headed back to the waiting lounge, and the refreshments were just about to clear out. Further wait ensued and it was only at 2000hrs that we managed to board the plane and leave for Denpasar.

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I had not applied for roaming for the trip.

Previously, when I had first gotten this Starhub line, the kind company gave me roaming as part of the bundled services, when I didnt really need it.

About a year ago, I cancelled the roaming services.

Talk about having anything when you don't need it, and not having it when you really need it.

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Anyway, I lost track of time - I switched off my K700i, only switching it back on when I need to take photos or check the time.

It must have been around 9 or 10 pm at night when we reached Denpasar - Bali time is the same as SGT and one hour ahead of Batam...

*...which is strange, when one consider that Bali is further east than Batam - this led MD to the conclusion that SG is actually in the wrong time zone; we should be GMT +7 instead of +8. [Now, that probably explains why I'm always interpreting the times on Soccernet wrongly - I've been adding 8 hours instead of 7 to UK time!] Elsewhere, I have read that this could be a political move to align SG in accordance with our neighbours up north [justification needed]...

Another taxi ride - we arrived at this Bed and Breakfast place in Kuta. Checked out the rooms and the price that they were offering was abit steep (Rp150k) - later on, we would seriously blast this place, but more of that later. By then, time had already flew by us; only half an hour remained of what was Day 01.


Entering our room...


My Bed for my first night...

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We settled down pretty soon, Naga and I. Naga decided that we should check out the surroundings - and we were out in a little over 5 mins. Visited the nearest 24-hour convenience store, and it had a sandwich bar inside as well. We grabbed a sandwich and a beer each - our first taste of the local Bintang. We sat on the steps of the opposing Discovery Mall (looks like any other mall in SG, with KFC, Thai Express, etc...) and had our supper with the techno music booming from the neighbouring Cabaret accompanying us.

After supper, we continued walking fown the streets up north - expensive restaurants lined both sides of the street, and taxi drivers kept their verbal probes at us, urging us for rides. One went so far as to follow us for a good 50-100 metres or so, offering anything from rides to ladies to drugs (several kinds) to kids/boys - and that was it. Naga managed to shrug him off and we continued walking.

We finally hit the beach after like, 20 mins of walking. Under the camouflouge of the dark blanket overhead, the waves hitting the shore shook our very foundations, right down to our spines...

Wait. Not that scary bah

It wasn't that dark - the waves were still visible - but we were well aware of the effects of devastating waves. We decided to stay clear of the beach for the night, and managed to find this hotel/resort place with a nice pool and poolside chairs. We spent some time by the pool, chatting about parents, home, and the next few days...


The Pool...


... and the Resort...

We spent a good half an hour (or maybe more) just by the pool, before decided to head back to our beds. Spent some time washing clothes, then shower before turning in.

Eventful first day in Indonesia, I thought...

To be continued....