Humanitarian luxury

27/7/11- Humanitarian luxury

One could get quite used to a little bit of luxury. As we missed out boat and flights though Flores we stayed on at our little island retreat. One likes coffee served in a cafeteria, a choice of eggs with fresh toast and fruit for breakfast, rooms cleaned every days, a hot powerful shower and a general air of civility. Mixing with other travellers it’s like we are for a developed country and they are from in impoverished one. As such we decided to do some humanitarian work and offered Doreen a hot shower and a fresh towel. She gratefully accepted.

I collected my laundry today and was robbed although I don’t know how. After many months of taking laundry to be washed by the kilo I am fairly good at guessing the weight of the bag of clothes plus or minus 2kg. So I had expected to pay for 5-7kg of clean laundry but was told that it was in fact 10kg. Only once in 5 months have we had a bag of washing weighing 10kg and that was after the trek up the volcano and we were washing half of our clothes including all our heavy walking trousers and fleeces. I was convinced they were trying to rob me so I insisted that we weigh the washing and predictably they had no scales. I suggested going to the shop next door and somehow the scales must have been weighted as the read out was 10kg. I am perplexed as to how this was achieved and in the words of James when I recounted the story…kill them!!!!

As now is my routine on this extended island stay I trotted around the island having the route march down to 55minites knocking 10miniutes of my previous personal best? I even managed a second lap later in the day with company - both James and Doreen.

Dinner was again overlooking the sea with beautiful sea views and a wonderful temperature. That said when extremely loud conversation killing music was turned on the three of us looked at one another and decided to retire to bed. Physical we may be young enough to enjoy music but mentally we are old sods… turn that noise down!

28/7/11… Tourist clichés

As our trip to Asia is nearly at an end we decide that we had better do some of the things tourist do so here goes
1) Drink from a fresh young coconut- tick…. Note- not missed by not doing this before. Taste horrid
2) Eat a pineapple that has been peeled and served to you by the hawker on the beech… Note- this is rather tasty maybe we could have done more of this??
3) Pay for something on your card incurring a 3% charge… Note- this has been necessary due not to poor planning but the extended stay on an island with no ATM’s. One shall not be doing that again!

Somehow we have managed to fill the rest of the day with doing nothing again. Breakfast, three house of internet surfing, lunch, reading by the sea, dinner bed. Very relaxing but leaves very little to talk about on the blog…

29/7/11-Australisia calling…

We actually did something today. We caught the 8.30am Island hopping boat and you guessed it went to another island. After disembarkation (wading through the sea) we headed to a bird park and observed lots of rather beautiful parrots and some that looked like they had the mange. We also got one hell of a shock when we looked over a 5ft wall and saw a fucking crocodile just sitting there. Well I nearly shit myself and instructed James to peek over the wall again to confirm what I had seen. It was indeed a crocodile about 5ft long looking very evil. Its pen looked like it had seen better days and should it want to escape it probably could. Fortunately it was enjoying a relaxing soak in its pool. We didn’t hand around to see if the pen could contain it!

The afternoon was spent… predictably sitting on the beech reading. The afternoon came round and we waded out to the boat which had got grounded, was listing and had taken on some water. The journey back was very rough and we got rather wet. It was at this point we realised that we were ready to leave Asia as this had turned from an amusing antidote for the blog into a pain in the arse! This combined with the beautiful island scenery failing to excite us and the constant heat we decided that James plan of 5 months in Asia was exactly the right length as we would be in Oz in 3 days’ time!

That evening Asia tried to prove us wrong about wanting to leave. As the sun set all the clouds dissipated giving us a fantastic view of the stars. Being on an island with little light pollution we could see literally thousands of stars. It was truly spectacular!

30/7/11. Turn that noise down!

We actually left Gilli Air after 12 days on the island. This time we opted for the fast boat back to Bali. This was a far faster than the public ferry but it was somewhat more bouncy and rocky. We survived without being sick or capsizing. After collecting our bags at what passed for bedlam at the post we were herded onto a bus for our transfer. Unfortunately there were more people that seats so we enjoyed a two hour drive crushed together with our feet on James bag.

I was dropped in Snaur to get my refund for the flight tickets and James headed on to Kuta to our hotel. Predictably the office was not where the ticket told me it was. In fact there was just an empty shop. I persuaded a local man to ring the office and find out where they were. They had relocated 1 hr. away and funnily had not mentioned this when the hotel rang them about my refund! So I was standing next to a duel carriage way with my bag thinking I needed to get to central Sanur where I bought the tickets from originally. Maybe they could help? Just one small problem a lack of taxis but the same local came to my rescue and offered to take me on his moped and even produced a helmet. After ascertaining that he was not expecting to be paid but would help me find a taxi later (i.e. his mater with a car) we set off to Sanur. Now if I had not been to Sanur before I would have been certain that he was taking me to rob me as we turned down a small passage. Fortunately I recalled that most of Sanur was made up of these passages.

After a few minute we arrived at the original ticket office where I was greeted like a long lost friend. I told them my predicament (over egging how ill I had been causing me to miss the flights) and asked if they could call the company. It transpired that there was a more local office and they were aware they had promised me a refund but unfortunately they bank was closed and I could not have a refund until Monday. Normally I would begin to tell the customer service officer I only needed a refund of 100 and that they would surly have this in the office but alas they spoke no English. This farce went on for 15 minutes involving lots of phone calls. Sensing that I would not be getting any money I suggested to the ticket vendor that I he gave me 1.1m rupiah and he collect the full refund on Monday keeping 200,000 for himself. Another flurry of conversation and phone calls then ensued and he offered me 900,000rp as this is all he had. With a take it or leave it ultimatum I decided to take it as 900,000rp was better the 0rp!

Arriving at the hotel James had already checked in and was reclining in our rather nice room. The original plan had been to have two days of Best Western luxury after roughing it in Flores. As it turns out we had just had 10 days of luxury but were not deterred by another two particularly as we had already paid! Arriving in the room I found James in a state close to ecstasy as the beds were huge and soft, there was air conditioning and free wifi and even better a full sized bath with an unlimited supply of hot water. The only downside was our room looked over the pool which was playing music rather loudly although upon enquiring when this would be turned off we were told 7pm… more on that later!

Deciding to make the most of the hotels facilities James jumped in the bath and I headed down to have a swim in the pool. Later we curled up on the bed with take away street food and watched a movie. Predictably 7pm came and went within a reduction in the music volume. Upon enquiring when it would stop the bar manager looked at me strangely, told me they were having a cocktail party and suggested 10pm. Now this cocktail party appeared to consist of ten 50 somethings eating dinner and screaming to each other over the music which was neither jazz nor classical but hard core nightclub beats. Sensing that the bar man had never been to a cocktail party, had not judged his audience taste in music and was really just pleasing himself I ventured to reception to complain. I was reassured that the music would be tuned down. Three phone calls later, two hours of time and a visit to reception demining to speak to the manager in person and our third floor room ceased to vibrate to the latest club music!

31/7/11 Shopping hell!

After breakfast we jumped on the hotel shuttle bus and headed to the downtown mall. Three reasons for this being 1) its winter in Oz and we need some warmer clothes 2) James wants new clothes 3) there is fuck all else to do in the god forsaken place near the hotel. Location location location- i.e. it’s handy to the airport but it’s my idea of hell. Shopping, drinking and that’s about it. We are surrounded by fat Australians drunk brits and young people on their first holiday without their parents. To make matters worse the clothes appear to be made for people shaped like boxes they don’t even fit me let alone James. One is not happy but the upside is that we can go back to the hotel and stop shopping so I am very happy. Rock on swimming pool!

Returning to the hotel I want to make sure there is no repeat of the noise from last night so I ask to speak to the manager. What I get is the chief accountant he finds the whole thing very amusing and keeps smiling at me. Now not one normally drawn to violence I want to punch him! Eventually he tires of me and walks off and I again ask for the manager. Now this chap has obviously been to customer service training as he lets me tell my story, apologises, reassures me there will be no repeat of the previous night and offers me a free lift to the airport the next day. This reduces my frustration and stops me from demanding the company headquarters address! One is calm now.