Back in Kuta Bali and its good!

My last 24 hours included visiting relatives on the Gold Coast in QLD, spending hours in airports and planes and getting back to normal here in Bali.

My relatives from California who moved to the Gold Coast 14 years ago threw a great bbq including home made salsa which rocked, mashed potato, chicken and asparagus. It was worthy of Bob Heidrich!

I got to play a game of tennis with my 22 year old cousin Ian who plays American football, as you can see he’s a little guy.

Great to catch up and they drove me back to Brisbane, by some miracle I found Chris’s parents house in the dark. My flight out of Brisbane back to Bali went through Sydney and was scheduled at 6.45am. The only sure way to make it was by taxi which cost around $30.

My first surprise of the day was the woman at Qantas in Brisbane telling me she would not allow me to board the plane without a ticket out of Bali. I protested, who the heck are they the CIA? Anyway as Indonesia requires an ongoing ticket Qantas is pooping its pants about flying any passenger without one. Its all crap of course, Indonesian immigration are corrupt from top to bottom and a ‘little something’ will sort out any problems on arrival, but that doesn’t compute for a western clerk. I bought a ticket to Singapore for about $800 Australian and hope to get a refund here in Bali.

My 2 flights, Qantas from Brisbane to Sydney and Australian Airlines from Sydney to Bali were smooth with good service and no hiccups. I must say though I get burned out on the whole lining up, metal detector, ticketing, waiting scene.

Arriving in Bali the wind was blowing in the opposite direction than is normally does so the approach took us over Nusa Dua and landing in a westerly direction. I was greeted by a friendly face on the ramp, our friend Mick Turnbull who was waiting for a plane to service. He walked me down to immigration and we’ll catch up soon. Mick said he heard the new tourist visa will be implemented on Feb 1st, we’ll see. The guy at immigration tried a yard of BS with me about all the stamps in my passport….’you have business here yes, you need another visa’. ‘No’ I said, ‘just tourist’. He was waiting for that ‘little something’ and next time I may just go ahead and plop one in ( 50,000rp) to avoid all the nonsense.

Caught a taxi home for 40,000rp and crashed on my bed for about 3 hours.

My first meal was a grilled tuna with bbq sauce, rice, salad and steamed veg at a little place on Jl. Benesari and Jl. Pantai Kuta for 23,000rp ( $2.90). Its good to be home.