Going to China

We have been so long without posting anything! Yikes. Well, We’re almost to the end of the trip, so have a lot of catching up to do.

I’ll start with our flight out of Bali, Indonesia. After arguing with Dad over the taxi prices, we finally hired a guy to drive us across the island. I read through the drive. I believe. I may have had no books and had been using the netbook. It was a while ago, and I’ve a terrible memory. (I get that from Mom).

We went through all that airport stuff, and got settled down in the airplane, but only after Mom got really amused at this:

I looked constantly at the in-flight entertainment screen, waiting for it to come on. As I waited, I checked out the movies in the magazine. Three seconds after I could watch a movie, I began surfing, trying to find the Green Hornet movie. A few seconds after that, the flight attendants voice echoed from the loudspeaker: “All personnel, please prepare for landing.”

That was odd, as the movies come on just as we enter cruising mode. I brushed it off and clicked the play button. The captain came on another few seconds later, alerting us that there were a few problems with the engine, and we would have to land again for repairs.

I was oblivious, fast forwarding through the commercials. Later, when we were descending, I asked Mom and Dad about the announcement. I discovered we were on the ground because of some problems with the engines, and auxiliary power. I continued watching the movie as they tried to fix it, but eventually the pilot told us we had to spend another night in Bali.

This was okay because,

a) We were planning to spend a day in Hong Kong anyway, so we’d make all our pre-booked flights in China. (All of our transport in China was via airline, as the distances between the highlights were so great we needed to fly to each one).

b) Cathay Pacific was paying for our hotel. Although, we had prepaid for our hotel in Hong Kong, but this was okay as

c) The hotel that was deemed average by the airlines was FAR above and beyond our budget.

After a long bus ride into the Hotel district of the town, we arrived at a hotel with a name that was very Bali, and I believe it was Ayodya.

Welcome sign

We went to the hassled staff working to move and accommodate the Cathay Pacific hordes, and they told us to go to our room, and gave us the key.

We went, and found only one double bed.

Later, after a bit of hiking back to the front check in, we had two fabulous hotel rooms, complete with a hot shower, hot bath, a small deck, a comfortable bed, a bathrobe, and non-free wifi.

We left without fully exploring it, and went to a giant buffet dinner. It was on the edge of a huge pond, and a bunch of nice tables. The buffet was full of food, ranging from spaghetti to snail. It had food from all nationalities. The best part was the dessert. They had chocolate pudding, and I’d grab a pineapple from the desert plate and mix them together.

I became very fascinated when we saw a sign that had a picture of a crocodile, a hand, and one of those ‘don’t do that’ circles with a diagonal slash. There were crocodiles in the pond!? We asked the staff about it, and they told us there were lizards in the pond. And people tried to feed them, but got bit. The lizards only came out during the day, and it was too dark to see them then.

When our dinner was done, we went back to the hotel room and snuggled in. After a bit of discussion, we bought 24 hours of Wi-Fi, and I did a little bit of school, but by that hour it was very late.

I fell asleep, and was woken up by a phone call informing us that we had to wake up at 5:30 the next morning.

I was very tired the next morning, but breakfast made up for it. We got a fabulous buffet breakfast, with muffins and yogurt and muesli and even low-fat yogurt for Dad!

We got held up by easily the best part of the hotel: the huge monitor lizards in the pond. There were waterbirds as well, and koi fish and tiny fish for the lizards to eat.

Monitor Lizards

Unfortunately, the bus was supposed to leave at 6:30, so we hurried over there. We waited until 7:15 until the bus finally left, to our great irritation.

Then we stood in the enormous line in the airport, where every body was moving through at once. We made it through, were able to skip paying the hefty departure tax again, and got back on the flight.