Bali - Day 1

My love-hate relationship.. *sigh*

This post is long-overdue. Though I am unoccupied nowadays, I have been wasting time watching movies. (well, not a total waste.. I felt good afterwards. Hehe!) I even had a movie marathon last week to watch the blockbuster trio Rapunzel-Harry Potter-Narnia. It was definitely a day full of ‘magic’. :) To sum it up, I watched over 20 movies (DVDs included) since I came back from Bali. I know it’s not something to be proud of.. but that’s the best thing I’ve got so far. Hahahhaha!

Ok, enough with the chit chat. Let me start narrating what went down in my Bali retreat.
My Air Asia flight from LCCT to Bali was scheduled to depart at 6.30pm on 29 November 2010 (Fun fact, exactly one year ago I left KL for Seoul! I shall make this my vacation day. Hehe.) My mom was very kind to give me and Sakinah a lift to the airport. We arrived 50 minutes before the take-off, so everything went smoothly. Thank God we didn’t have to check-in any bag and we did the online check-in. However, I didn’t have any printer at home and we were anxious about not printing the boarding pass beforehand so we ran around Summit USJ, frantically searching for a cyber café that has printing services, but to no avail. So, we still had to go to the check-in counter in the LCCT and get our boarding pass.

We didn’t pre-order any meals on board so we planned to eat at the airport before we board the plane. On our way in to the boarding area, Sakinah told me that she heard the number of our plane being announced. We tried listening intently but heard nothing, plus, the crowd was big. (I know.. I miss KLIA.) We were relieved to find Dunkin Donuts so we took our time to order our Sandwich-Donut-Coffee combo. As Sakinah was taking her second bite out of the sandwich, we heard..

“Attention to Miss Nurul Hidayah binti Abdull Rahim, Miss Nur Sakinah binti Salleh, Mr Yadda Yadda and Mr Yadda Yadda, please board your plane AK000 to Bali, NOW”

It was 6.20p.m. Fucketty fuck.

We shoved the sandwiches and donuts in our handbags, grabbed my iced coffee (Sakinah left her drink there. Poor thing.) and scrambled to the boarding gate downstairs. The gate was already closed but, bless Air Asia, they still let us in. I know this sounds contradictory but I hate Air Asia for having to walk that 200-metres stretch to our plane. Remember we didn’t check-in our luggage? I was tugging my 6kgs cabin luggage in one hand and managing my drinks in another, I was trying to sip (more like suck) as much iced coffee as I can, while half-sprinting across the hangar. I felt like throwing up after climbing that stupid metal staircase up to our plane but the feeling of relieved washed  my nausea away. Hahaha! After all that pandemonium, five minutes after we boarded the plane, the plane took-off and we were well on our way to Bali!!!!

After enduring 3 hours of our seats being kicked by kids, we landed safely on Bali soil. We already arranged for a place to stay for the entire trip with a sweet girl, Dama, whom I found on www.couchsurfing.org. First thing first, buy an Indonesian line so that we can get in touch with Dama. We made a bee line to the nearest stand and bought a sim card for Rp50000 with Rp6000 in it. (RM1=Rp3800) After confirming that Dama is home, we went to the nearest taxi counter to book a cab. The taxi ride to Dama’s place set us back Rp70000.

Finding Dama’s place was tricky since it was dark plus the roads and lanes in Sanglah, Denpasar area was narrow. After that one phone call to Dama in the airport and a few texts to our families in Malaysia, we ran out of credit. We had to ask the taxi driver to call Dama using his cell phone or else we would never find her place. Thank goodness the driver was kind and generous and he was more than happy to make the call. Definitely, kindness on foreign soil is invaluable.

After settling down in Dama’s place.. we drew the curtain for Bali Trip – Day 1. Stay tuned for Day 2!