My Bali Trip: Getting There

So I've decided that rather than trying to squeeze all of my Indonesian adventures into one long, overwhelming, over-detailed, over-flowing-with-pictures blog, it would be more fun to split it up into a little 'blog series.' This also lets me draw out the lingering bliss of being on vacation for as long as possible.

I would like to dedicate this first blog to our treacherous journey of actually getting to Bali. After my terribly long and exhausting week, I ran home on Friday afternoon and we headed to the airport where we left for Hong Kong at about 8. We got there a few hours later and proceeded to have an 11 hour overnight layover in the Hong Kong airport. Which we spent attempting to sleep on the airport chairs. I would like to write a letter to the dear authorities of the Hong Kong airport and ask them, why, oh why, must they place a bar after every 2 chairs. It makes sleeping near impossible: Who can curl up and get comfy when you only have 2 seats to work with? I'll tell you who: NO ONE. I had a realization as I stuffed myself onto those two chairs and tried to talk myself out of a hysterical meltdown: cheaper tickets with unbearable layovers are not worth it.

We finally boarded our flight to Bali the next morning and arrived at Denpassar Airport in the early afternoon exhausted, sweaty, dirty, and eager to catch our boat to Nusa Lembongan, an island off of Bali. We did not, I tell you, DID NOT catch that boat. The airport in Bali may be one of the stupidest, most unorganized, stupidest...stupidest airports I've ever been in. About 5 flights came in at once, everyone raced to the immigration lines where you had to first line up to buy your visa, then turn around and attempt to find a line to get through immigration. I say 'line' as if there were any lines, but there weren't. There was just an un-airconditioned room of about 2,000 hot, angry, jet-legged travelers, all peering above the mass of people at the desks of immigration officers wondering..."why isn't this ****ing line moving!?!?!?" (Pardon the language, but emotions were running high...) We stood there for 2 hours with our heavy bags, sweating like pigs shoved into a barn awaiting slaughter. (Does it sound like I'm making it more dramatic than it was? I'm not. It was that bad.)

But we arrived. And the adventures began. Adventures of which will be described in upcoming blog posts. :)

And a quick note on my return: we arrived at Incheon airport this morning at 5 am, got home by 7, and had to be up for work by 8:30. I would like to reiterate the statement I made earlier: cheaper tickets with unbearable layovers are not worth it.

Please, oh please, self, remember this when I book my next excursion...