Along our walk…

So picking up from where I left off in the last post, we were not far off our visit to the Smithwicks Brewery, which itself isn’t far off being gone for good.

We wandered around Kilkenny for the gap in between, pacing up and down the streets, seeing what shops they have that we don’t, going up and down (and there is a lot of them) the narrow side streets and seeing what they had, wandering into shops and back out, so on. One thing you can always be sure of in nearly every Irish town, it almost goes without saying, is that there’s always either a large Dunnes Stores or Tesco nearly in the town centre. Kilkenny, for the avoidance of doubt, has a Dunnes.

It has a lot of cute shops alright, but so as I don’t get an e-mail telling me it wasn’t worth the trip, it is also quite a small town and you can pace the whole town in a day trip if you, like myself, walk it at a reasonable speed.

Delish!

Back to the Smithwicks Brewery then for our tour – the first and most obviously striking thing about this particular brewery tour is its lack of ‘corporate’ when compared alongside the Guinness tour up in Dublin. In other words, for anyone who hasn’t been, the Guinness tour is very long and large, almost cocooned from any actual production that might also be taking place on the site and it’s more like a designated visitor attraction than a visitor attraction that grew out of showing off the production and facilities. The Smithwicks tour meanwhile, comes complete with hi-visibility clothing, safety goggles and rooms that clearly smell of industrial beer production. I know it’s bound to happen, but it’d be a terrible shame to lose it – process efficiencies and corporate ‘unification’ aside.

In fact, the last time I had such an ‘honest’ tour was at this place some years back, the Steam Whistle Brewery, just literally opposite the CN Tower in Toronto. Basically, they weren’t long in the game and the tour consisted of a few beers before going around; a tour that was more or less completely unplanned or scripted; and then a few more beers afterwards. It was actually one of the best tours of anything in my life to be honest – and it was worthwhile for them too. At one point, myself and my friend went to leave and were more or less hauled back in, forced to have another beer which tipped us over into the stage of ‘that was delicious, let’s get a 6-pack each for the road’. Anyway, back on topic…

Kilkenny evening!

Smithwicks. It came with the almost compulsory free pint at the end, each one perfectly poured by our tour guide who then promptly disappeared for a bit. Of course, harking back to the Steam Whistle experience, I lingered around to see if a second pint might be on the cards but as most tourists left of their own accord, it looked highly unlikely and we eventually called it a late afternoon ourselves.

Back out into the cold February evening, my thirst for a pint had but only increased so we rounded off our trip with a delicious meal of bar food and, in my particular case, a ‘gathering’ of my own; a gathering of pints to round the evening off (which I can assure you did nothing for me trying to get the car out of the aforementioned ultra-compact car park the next morning).

Next time round, I’ll let you know how our trip to the sunny South-West went down, and how to try and reach road-worthy speeds in a Peugeot 206 with 4 people plus all their luggage. It was interesting…

Our room for the stay!

With us safely back in Ireland after our long trip around Asia, it wasn’t long before we got planning our next exit. Sadly, not enough of you have either booked hotels through the site, clicked on ads or any of the other subtle money-making things I’ve left around and with my day job not funding constant exotic holidays, we had to take it down a notch – but, with this supposedly being the year of The Gathering as we all know, we reckoned Ireland might be an interesting bet with the year that was in it.

With a two-night stay in Kilkenny already in our travel planning ‘bag’, we decided to advance it forward as far as possible and took it up in February, just before the winter…continued. Kilkenny really is an inexcusably short drive from Dublin, and with motorway virtually right to the doorstep, there’s no good reason why I hadn’t been there since I was about 6. Our stay for the visit was the rather plush Kilkenny Ormonde hotel. It’s more or less on top of the town centre, has a pool and some other leisure facilities that we lamentably never got round to using, and a (very difficult to negotiate) car park just across the road – but I can’t stress enough that a small vehicle is more or less mandatory if you intend climbing the levels in this particular car park.

The view…leaving a bit to be desired…

First impressions of the hotel – very pleasant. It has a sort of unusual corridor like entrance that opens into a huge reception area, with the bar and restaurants off it and a large glass-fronted waiting area. Of course, like all good Irish hotels, it comes heated up to a nursing home-level ensuring a coma-like state the second you sit down and in our particular case, the view was by no means especially riveting – looking out to some backyard and overlooking the very industrial roof of the restaurant area. That said, they can’t all be winners and in general it was very pleasant.

I wouldn’t take marks off for this necessarily, but it would be something of a gripe that our sleep was made next to impossible by a woman who fancied herself as Sinead O’Connor for a period of time – until I called reception, that is. Anyway, she really was belting out all the hits, with some male cheering-on by the sounds of it; as I say, not the hotel’s fault although I just can’t understand how people find this to be acceptable behaviour anywhere.

The castle in all its glory…

Up early the next morning to make sure we got our breakfast in for the long day ahead, we headed straight off to discover what sights Kilkenny had in store for us. Naturally, as you would, we arrived up to the castle first. We really are very ‘speed-oriented’ tourists no matter how much sightseeing and appreciation we try and do, and I am fully cognisant that this regularly comes off as an attitude of indifference or carelessness to one’s local culture and heritage but it really is just that we see things, take it in, and move on, rather than hanging around half the day looking as if we’re waiting for the old knights to actually shuffle back to life. Anyway, this meant a debate on whether to even visit the castle or not – eventually deciding that it looked big enough that we surely couldn’t have to pass by the receptionist again within 15 minutes.

If you get the chance, and you should try, the castle’s actually very worthwhile. It took us about an hour in the end to actually get through, which must be something of a record.

Next up on our agenda was a trip to the soon-to-be-gone original home of Smithwicks, disappearing as global beverage giant Diageo continues to pursue efficiencies and this means moving Smithwicks up to Dublin. Our appointment was for much later in the afternoon – a time which, I hoped, would be more conducive to the intake of numerous free pints of the famous brew itself – so we had plenty of time to take in the town.

Coming up next time, I’ll tell you about Kilkenny town itself, the Smithwicks brewery and whether those free pints materialised or not…

He’s not worried anyway…

From the last thrilling installment of our road trip, we continued on after the waterfall tearing back up and over the same mountains we’d come down the previous night, passing out vehicles (and in one case, an ambulance) as we endeavoured seemingly to get back to the other side in record timing.

We stopped en-route only to pick up an ice cream, in one case take some pictures of a fearless monkey that was sitting on top of a fence taking whatever anyone threw at him, and enjoy some of the cool mountain air before slaloming back down towards sea level. We came to our next halt at a place called Lake Beratan, where a large temple and greenery opened out to a massive lake, backed by mountains. As is always a bit the case with these things, the pictures don’t do justice to the time of day that we were now approaching and with it, the hordes of tourists were out en-masse.

Lake Beratan!

One thing that sprung up time and time again in our conversations was (in spite of the extreme irony of the situation) the beauty of the place set against the tourist capacity before it just strains the place to complete breaking point and where tourism grows and grows to a point where it’s so mainstream and expansive that a lot of the people who originally went there for peace and calm can no longer find it there. There’s no doubt however, that although a heavy fog hung over the place like it was trying to choke us all out, it was still very intriguing.

Back into the car after one of our traditional ‘lightning speed’ trips around the lake and the journey to our next stop was one of the longest, taking a few hours to reach one of the final stops of the tour – the temple in the sea, Tanah Lot. Tanah Lot sadly dragged up the old question once again in record timing for us; Tanah Lot’s entrance, for those who may remember it, was not unlike the old toll plaza on the M50 in terms of size and appearance.

To get down to Tanah Lot, one must walk a very long and exhaustive pathway – not unlike the ‘long walk’ in an airport past every catering and retail franchise they can cram in, just to get to your plane – past market stalls, souvenir shops, the odd photo opportunity stop and much more.

Tanah Lot…on a busy day it seems…

I’ll be honest – the first time this happened to me, I was blindingly disappointed. I remember it well – Niagara Falls, and I was wholeheartedly expecting some kind of beaten old mud path winding through trees and then opening up to the natural wonder. Instead it was the most horrendously over-commercialised tack I’ve ever seen – to this date in fact. And while it’s more understandable for this to be going on somewhere like Bali, I always still wish we could be a bit more careful presenting natural wonders for what they’re supposed to be…natural.

We actually tried quite hard to get a ‘site-suitable’ picture where it looked like it was supposed to, but the one featured was as good as it got in terms of the crowds present.

Eh…does the car really fit?!

Back into the car and onto the final leg of the tour – back home – during Bali peak time traffic. Made decided to take us for one last diversion through the ‘backroads’ and being honest, it ended up being one of the highlights of the second day of the road trip. On tracks just wide enough for the car to fit through, we cruised through rice paddies, through gates barely wide enough to fit the car through, over bridges that looked like they were never designed or to be utilised for vehicles before eventually getting stuck on a hill with an oncoming motorcyclist. It was much more of the nature I’d been hoping to see, and only thanks to Bali’s peak-time traffic seemingly.

Safely back home, it was time for one last meal out, a last period of enjoyment of Bali and what it had given us (including one final Bintang for the road, in my case) before packing and getting ready for the long trip back to what would be – regardless of the actual weather – a cold, miserable Dublin.

The volcano…

Stopping just long enough at the volcano for a number of pictures, a quick debate on whether some of the ground we were looking at was in fact lava-tarred or just barren and a brief discussion on why we hadn’t stopped at the entry box to pay, we were back in the car and continuing on in no time. After the earlier part of the journey, we were all pretty tired and getting more and more anxious to bed down for the night. We stopped very briefly at a temple at the top of a hill, during which Anna spent almost the entire time debating with a friendly local over the price of a dress to visit the temple, which we actually had no intention of doing anyway and so after much debating (and some hardcore guilt-tripping, the likes of which I have been employing for a number of negotiations since) we carried on in the car, finally coming to a stop at a hotel recommended by Made, our driver, the quite-luxurious looking Aditya Beach Resort.

As with all things regarding tourism in Bali, some hardcore negotiation followed during which we basically bartered down the price of a room, and when that was down, the price of our early morning excursion the next day to see the dolphins. Negotiation successful and keys handed over, our luggage was deposited into an outsize wheelbarrow and we were led to our room. The room was actually very pleasant on the inside – if perhaps a bit old school – with TV, well-sized if a bit pongy bathroom, and a very efficient air conditioning unit which belied its age. After reaching, as my grandmother would say, our elegant sufficiency courtesy of the all you can eat deal in the restaurant it was straight off to bed and off for a good nights sleep.

The source of the irritation…

Except it wasn’t. Roughly every 20 minutes a gentle rumble would escalate into an all-out take-off as if our room was now screaming down a runway about to take flight. This all-out rampage would last several minutes before receding back to nothing more a gentle, sleep-inducing rumble. And it did the trick well – the first few times we woke up startled, before being lulled back to sleep gently. But as the night wore on, somewhere around 1am, we realised this lullaby noise was merely a trick in inducing us to sleep before waking us up in a panicked sweat some 20 minutes later again. Eventually, somewhere around 3am, the air conditioning unit got the blame and was promptly switched off. But curiously, as the temperature began to go unchecked and we slowly drifted off again, in a widening pool of sweat, we were both startled back to liveliness by the jet engine reaching max thrust once more. The culprit, it would turn out sometime around 4am, was the fridge. Plugged out and with no noise anymore, one hour sleep was left to be had.

Back up, shorts and t-shirt on and straight out to the beachfront for our dolphin trip. Now, we didn’t really know what to expect of the boat, but given the size of the group (circa 25 people), we reckoned it would at least be relatively seaworthy and stable – not quiet. Instead, everyone was split into groups of two or three and shown to what was effectively their private kayak with wings. After hopping into our oversized kayak, our captain, a man of no more than 21, lit up the first of many cigarettes, fired up the engine in a belch of thick black diesel exhaust smoke, spoke a few completely unintelligible words to us before setting off.

The oversized kayak!

Now, it’s worth remembering that we were effectively chasing dolphins. But so were about 20 more of these oversized kayaks – and while it was very interesting and an experience definitely never to be forgotten, we did sort of come to question if the dolphins were really that thrilled having at least twenty boats chasing after them every time they had cause to surface. At one point in fact all the boats made a complete circle where we all had seen the dolphins moments earlier – needless to say, this tactic was less than useful as they re-surfaced somewhere completely different some time later. Our captain, though evidently quite young and with probably not a long life ahead of him judged purely by his intake of cigarettes, proved to be quite a master at predicting the whereabouts of the dolphins and we broke away several times from the ‘pack’ and ended up having great success locating them. Nonetheless, the last time I saw dolphins in any number was on a catamaran heading to Vancouver Island at about 40 knots and it was a short-lived experience so whatever the dolphins may think of being hunted by a bunch of diesel-belching boats every morning, it was wonderful at any rate and set us up for the day.

Wow. Good start to the day…

Back on dry land and with breakfast thrown down the hatch and bags packed, we were back into the car. After the early morning sun(burn), I was happy enough for the air con again and as we drove, climbing back up the same hills we’d come down the previous night to get to the hotel, our initial start to the trip was cut short to observe a stop at a waterfall. The waterfall – in our minds anyway – will always be more notorious for the outrageous length of the walk to get to it (complete with highly questionable distance markers) than for the actual wonder itself. Bali knows how to do tourism to the extreme and I’ve never before seen a waterfall come with such an intense amount of associated souvenir shops. We walked for a good 15/20 minutes each way (at a good pace), with souvenir stalls being spaced roughly 5 meters along for large stretches. But, thankfully, where there weren’t souvenir shops and aside from the waterfall itself (which was lovely), some of the surrounding scenery was delightful by itself – pictured – and was worth the walk.

After the waterfall, we returned to the car (ice creams in hands) before continuing on for the rest of the days travelling, which I’ll cover next time round!

The beginning…

Last place I left off, we were nearly at the dance. We sped along the narrow ‘highway’ for about 20 minutes onwards from the night market, before taking a sharp off-road detour so abrupt that the remainder of my Martabak was nearly catapulted through the air to the other side of the car. We rumbled along the road through the complete darkness for maybe another 10 minutes or so, before driving gently through something of a village, with gangs of youths loitering on the streets, the odd person looking completely dazed by the cars lights and a few houses – and then coming to a stop. We wondered had we missed something, but no a barn nearby was the site of the forthcoming dance. Now I just want to say – I’ve seen lots of dances, but this one was a new one. It started off with a fair bit of noise, one side would bang out a tune for upwards of 5/10 minutes, before the other side would suddenly and almost without warning pipe up, replacing the sound of the other half the room. And as this progressed, at first a dragon appeared out of nowhere (seen in the video below), before retreating. And what happened next, will forever redefine my idea of a ‘freestyle’.

A girl sort of came out (again, from nowhere), and moved around doing some sort of – what we perceived to be – cultural dance. Suddenly, after some jeering and jostling, a young boy about 16 was thrust (or maybe thrust himself, I can’t be sure) to the front of the crowd before turning back nervously, looking forwards, and throwing himself down into the beat. It started off with a sort of nervous nightclub grinding-like dance as he got closer and closer to this girl, seemingly not really sure what to do (it was a situation I am all too familiar with from back in the day…) before basically, there’s no pleasant way to describe this, taking her from behind…full on…except still clothed. Myself and Anna looked at each other, figuring some unspeakable act had been committed and the boy would be removed very soon. But no, he was removed alright – by another boy with more zest  for the experience. And speaking of experience, as this went on for around 2 hours, there seemed to be plenty of it on show as kids as young as 8 or so got involved, also showing (over their clothes) the woman a good time. Everyone sort of got into it (we were also involved at one point) but we came away still wondering was it supposed to be like that. As I say, I’ll never think of a freestyle in the same way again.

The next morning we were off on our trip of Bali. I won’t lie to you – I only had one beer the previous night and yet still wondered might I have hallucinated what had taken place. But the video evidence was there.

Absolutely delish!

We were into the car and on the road by around 11, bound firstly for Ubud and what I was promised would be Bali’s premier Babi Guling; of course, it could have been Bali’s worst too to be honest, having never tried it before or even knowing what I was expecting. We arrived to Ubud some hours later (I did say Bali traffic and driving in general is an unusual experience at best!) and I began by almost throwing myself into the Babi Guling restaurant, which wasn’t far off closing by this stage. In the end, myself and Anna got the last two portions – and really, I was the big winner to be honest as she didn’t eat a lot of hers! From there we wandered around the town, took in the market, went to one of those slightly freaky fish massage places, bought some souvenirs that we hoped wouldn’t tip our luggage over the allowable weight and returned to our car, having freaked our driver Made out sufficiently already with our lack of spending considerable time anywhere.

View from the road!

Back into the car and it was only a short-ish hop along the road to our next port of call, which we also spent only moments taking in – the rice paddy. With an absolute life-threatening fear of snakes, I had been informed only earlier in the journey that rice fields were the very place you might expect to come across a snake, or a family of them. This meant that our trip to the rice fields would now be a short one and almost certainly not involving much barefoot trekking. Nonetheless, even from the roadside (pictured) it was probably as picturesque as it got. I couldn’t even really imagine it being much better walking over to it.

We were down in only 5 minutes and back into the car for the next leg of the journey onwards to the volcano, before finishing up for the night – all for next time!

Good morning Bali!

From there on and for the next few days, life followed in much the completely same un-orderly manner – get up, generally throw myself straight into the pool in any fashion, hop out, shower, doss for an hour or two and read, head for some lunch, come back and possibly doss more and begin the drinking session again (if not already done so at lunch!), more pool-time and then dinner. Evening times spent out on the upper-level balcony topped every night off for me perfectly; even if we were, at least initially, slightly freaked out by the almost 3-month-old-kitten-sized gecko completely defying the laws of gravity above our heads on a nightly basis.

Along with the general chilling out, we had a wonderful gardener (and maid) who seemed to take care of everything you would otherwise normally have to consider at some point. And, although we were in desperate need of the rest, we eventually mustered up the energy to head out for a day trip with the property manager, Made, who also runs his own transport company. Setting off initially to view some mountainous land, we carried on in search of lunch; eventually coming to a completely deserted eatery stretching alongside the coast that served up one of the most perfect fried rice dishes I think I may have ever tasted.

Good morning Bali!

Back into the car (and the glories of air conditioning, which I in particular hugged as if my life was depending on it – which I think it may have been) and we carried onwards winding our way slowly uphill as we peeled ourselves completely up and away from the coast, as the air temperature outside got cool enough that even I was able to bear it comfortably. On we went, climbing in the car (which in Bali also involved blind overtaking, sudden and abrupt moments of acceleration and ridiculous road cornering – the likes of which could have you sufficiently penalised to be off the road for a year after just a few KM’s in Ireland) before reaching the summit – a majestic old tree, the base of which is split to make way for a road (pictured). While it would be unusual enough by any stretch for the base of a tree to be dissected by a road to begin with, it gets even more bizarre – as legend has it, if a couple can pass under this tree and still come out on the other side together, then the relationships one up. If it doesn’t work out like that, bummer – don’t make plans. Anna passed through (by herself) and I joined a moment later, to be sure we couldn’t jinx anything.

Next stop on our list…

From there, it was back down the hill – complete with the same comical driving – and onwards to Made’s next laugh opportunity of the day; a temple down by the coast once again where there is a requirement for all who enter to be decked out in some colourful attire. For Anna, this posed no problem – it simply looked like she was wearing a skirt bought locally. For me on the other hand – well, even the guy lending these items out (who I presume has seen it all before) really enjoyed the situation and made sure to gesture in such a way while creasing himself laughing that I was left in no doubt as to how ridiculous I looked. To make matters worse, the heat was not being good to us at this stage of the day and the idea of having to wear an additional layer of clothing beyond what was fully required wasn’t appetising in the slightest. I roamed around the temple in as timely a fashion as possible, while trying to enjoy and make the most of it, before gladly throwing off my robe and heading for the cool comfort of the car. It was lovely however, and we still did spend a considerable time wandering through it and taking it all in.

Waiting for the Martabak…

Returning home, we were back in the car only an hour or so later and headed back out for food again (and what we were promised would be an exciting ‘local dance’). This time, on Made’s suggestion and at Anna’s insistence we dine locally for the evening, we headed off to a night market, walking around for a while and deciding what to have, before finally settling for a ‘Martabak’. If it hadn’t been cooked in front of us, we’d literally have been completely clueless as to what it was or even what was in it – but it was absolutely one of the most delicious meals of the trip, followed down by some sort of similarly-cooked chocolate desert, also from the same stand. The only problem was a familiar one; coming away with two boxes of food each, we were full in no time and ended up carrying at least a box each around for about another day before admitting we’d never get round to eating it.

And the dance for the evening? That’s definitely a story for next time…

Flying high…

I transferred the membership over with glee, and then used the rest of the miles with BMI anyway to book and pay for a hotel in Singapore; by my standards, a rare double-win on any loyalty programme. But then that was it – I’d no need to travel again until the end of December for a trip to Germany.

So, to answer the occasional question on what can you expect in exchange for being an airline’s favourite customer? Well Aer Lingus’ website is unfortunately not geared towards simplicity in this regard and so it appears you sort of have to wing it a little bit in terms of what fares, benefits other than the obvious, etc. you get. On this occasion, flying from Dublin Terminal 2 at the crack of dawn, I rocked up and headed straight for the special ‘Gold Circle Check-in’ which wound up being at an unattended desk beside the Business Class Check-in, which is actually what you’re supposed to use it seems. And I would say that in desperate times, it can really be the making of a flight that would otherwise not be made – on my visit however, a family of tubby Americans (with proportionally sized bags) had just presented before me and were already bickering over the baggage allowances on their United loyalty membership vs. what they were being told here in Ireland. This is one of the most major problems (for the normal, right-thinking, respectful member of society) that I’ve seen on a number of occasions in the past – people who fly a lot on these programs, for whatever reason, come with a highly unrealistic sense of entitlement, which is re-enforced by a consistently poor sense of humanity and dignity.

Breakfast is served!

It’s not widely advertised, but you can bypass the wait for security. You simply need to go, membership card and boarding pass in hand, to this almost-hidden little door to the far left of the empty security desks in Terminal 2. I say empty, because despite having what must amount to 15/20 sets of doors, the normal procedure is to slalom back and forth the whole width of this area even though the queue is headed by only one or maybe two security staff and the walk entirely unnecessary. However, the area does get shockingly cramped in the mornings (also staffed by one, maybe two, security staff) so bypassing this nightmare is almost worth taking a few dummy flights by itself.

Probably the biggest win for cheapskates like myself of membership however, is use of the lounge. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, I get easily bored and with all due respects, Dublin was clearly designed for the shopper among us and I rarely have a spare cent, and even when I do, I find myself hard pressed for value on the items I’d actually want. Besides, my recent extravagances at SSP’s “delightful” outlets (see previous post/s) has left me hardcore unimpressed – I like my scrambled eggs to be scrambled, not drowned in water. Similarly, fruit should be presented as-is, not with the presence of moving insects which no staff member seems interested in dealing with. Moving on – so as you can imagine, a clean, relaxing, very well decorated (it is actually a very nice place to be) lounge with a complimentary selection of foods, fresh fruit, minerals and yes – even alcohol is to be welcomed. They even provide little bottles of water you can take with you, since as we know Aer Lingus can be an otherwise costly meal/drinks option.

Aer Lingus’ Terminal 2 Lounge!

On the downside, although in theory members get on the flight at their ‘leisure’, there is in practice, nothing leisurely about being stared down by the other 190 passengers as you seemingly jump to the top of the queue (there’s no real separation to speak of). Similarly, in spite of the freebies on the ground, all menu options on-board cost just as much in the air no matter who you are – this can be negated by taking the food with you though I suppose. Then there’s the frustrating issue of seat selection; there’s no business or premium economy class with which to tempt Gold Circle members or reward them with, so everyone pays to select their seat – if I was in Aer Lingus’ shoes, I’d consider free seat selection at booking for Gold Circle members, so they can pick an emergency exit seat as at least something of a ‘bonus’. Otherwise, the actual flight itself is no different. Similarly, I have a bit of a hang-up with the difficulty in earning points – you don’t earn on A, W and Z fare classes, which is basically any decently-priced flight. Although in Plus – you just need to know the secret (it literally is, I only found the web page through Google) – you can earn points regardless. But you don’t earn points for booking car parking for example with them, even though it’s the same price with the DAA so there’s no real bonus otherwise.

Who else is a member of an airline loyalty programme? Do you think other than those things there are any other benefits? What else would you have to say about them in defence/opposition?

Are you joking me?

The next morning we were up even earlier than the crack of dawn to get down to our basement-located MRT station for the trip out to the airport. What I will give Singapore is, you can dodge taxi’s the vast majority of time (see my original rant on this topic, some posts back) which is great considering how little it appears they actually want to take passengers to their intended destination.

Singapore “Changi” Airport wins a lot of praise, regularly, as a great airport, convenient, fun to transit through, etc. but even after the unquestionable “fun”, I’m still strongly of the opinion that no airport can be fun to be at early in the morning, no matter what they put in it. We hit up the Subway (one of the most horrendous Subway sandwich experiences I’ve ever had, just to clarify – so awful in fact that I only had a Subway again a week ago in January, when this was still last October) before boarding our flight to Denpasar.

Air Asia is a cheap airline, not a fun airline and I’d struggle to say we livened up any more on the circa 3 hour flight down to Bali as we refused flatly to buy anything on the flight and sat in that awkward half-awake, half-asleep way the entire trip. Denpasar Airport on the other hand comes equipped with a number of amusing moments for the first-time traveller. First on the list is the (brought about by the lack of a jetbridge to connect you directly with the terminal) almost hangover-like intense blast of heat that turns everyone on the plane into a tired-looking, profusely-sweating collective of wrecks. Then there was the bus ride to the terminal – the trouble was, the bus driver’s first gear was no longer ‘serviceable’ as they say, so after cutting out a few times, we got going in a belch of thick exhaust smoke in second gear. Then the entrance to the airport arrivals area, which is decked out as if they more or less plopped it all down in the middle of an old temple. Now that’s more like a fun airport, even if they didn’t at all mean it to be.

A favourite…and source of internet at the same time.

Sadly, there’s a charge payable to visit Bali – I’m always a bit loathe to pay these charges ever since I was caught out in New Zealand with their ridiculous departure tax – but considering the work they’re doing next door to make the airport new, and possibly a lot less fun and original, I can kind of appreciate it. Aside from that, we were only there thanks to the generosity of our friend Carol (and husband, Michael), whose site(s) I also work on (thank you, again!). Our driver was at least initially, nowhere to be seen. And while Bali’s taxi drivers are a very enthusiastic bunch if you’re not familiar with Asian taxi drivers, we’ve developed (me, in particular) a very specific nod of the head that seems to always do the trick so we stood outside Starbucks for a while, while I nodded my head with such frequency that it probably appeared I was having some sort of allergic reaction to taxi drivers.

First impressions!

Into the car and onwards. Now, I’ve travelled in India and a host of other places where the traffic is known for being a bit lunatic…but this was hardcore. There was one particular junction (marked by a stone Buddha in what was otherwise the middle of two streets) where two main roads seemingly just blended together. The result was complete chaos of the very highest levels. Despite consistently scoring highly on ‘spatial relations’ in aptitude tests throughout my life, I failed to understand how 30 cars could fit into such a compact space of two roads becoming one even smaller road and somehow still be moving along, steering frantically left and right to avoid hitting others within millimetres of each other. Not much farther down the road, we came to the first recommendation of the trip – food shopping at the Bintang! It’s rare that you get excited about a supermarket but we tore into it with reckless abandon, Anna stocking her trolley up with fruit, bread and other essentials. I, on the other hand, stocked my trolley up with fruit, chips and several cases of the local brew, also named ‘Bintang’. The bill? 475,000 Rupiah.

Is there a comment needed?

Back into the car and onto the road once more, we drove for a while. Then a while longer. I changed positions a few times, before starting to need to use the toilet. Carol had forewarned us that the journey could be between “2 and a half hours, and all day” – somehow I’d completely forgotten this in the process of buying fresh milk and not using the toilet when I’d the chance. The view and the scenery, to give credit, was exactly as predicted…that is to say, amazing. After a few hours, I very deliberately weaned myself off drinking any more water for fear that it might exacerbate the situation. In total, the journey was close enough to 4.5 hours and I somehow kept myself relatively composed on arrival and didn’t actually go racing to the toilet until everyone had left.

And by everyone, there was quite the welcome committee. Carol and Michael’s house, located in a very pleasantly quiet and sedate area came complete with its very own welcome committee – Anna, as usual, did a reasonable job of meeting everyone and looking relatively intact while I traipsed behind, instantly forgetting names and probably looking like I’d been kicked out of a nightclub as opposed to a well-heeled guest. But, nobody seemed to care and the house – evidently spectacular, before we’d even set foot inside!

All I needed was an ice-cold Bintang, a shower and a chance to take it all in…

Deposit…next…

This time round, Universal Singapore had something like 10% off when you paid in advance with your MasterCard – obviously this kind of deal (especially on the crazy prices they’re otherwise charging for a day at a fairly small theme park) was a serious sweetener, despite the fact that my MasterCard and I have had something of a tumultuous relationship over the years. It all began when for some reason my direct debit got cancelled meaning I had to remember to actually pay the bill every month. Needless to say, this never happened and I have since received countless letters informing me, initially, of dire consequences for not paying – although in recent years, the letters have been toned down and focused more on my potential inability to pay. Thankfully that’s also far  from the truth and it’s more inactivity than inability – I just struggle to remember to pay a bill for 50 odd quid every month. Anyway, this has reached such a pique where I try my best no longer to use the MasterCard, preferring instead to use the visa debit that a number of banks are now issuing.

I weighed this decision up heavily in my mind – possibly pay up the extra 10% in interest charges after forgetting some months down the line, or else remember and get the discount. In the end, being a stickler for a discount, I went with the MasterCard. I’m expecting the card to be blocked by the end of this month as I know for sure I haven’t paid it yet. So that tell you how successful that was.

Hello…?!

Back onto Singapore’s public transit system – which is uniquely packed at all times of the day and night – where we once again had to relieve our pockets of the stash of used tickets which we were due our deposits back on. Arriving to Universal, it appeared we’d done this one cleverly – it was a Monday morning, not very sunny out and the first few attractions were completely devoid of anyone else. One unique aspect of Universal Singapore, is their insistence on actually putting you through airport-style security before the more major rides. A bit bizarre and I don’t see the ‘free lockers for 30 minutes’ being much help in the midst of a summer peak day. Nonetheless, as you can see from the pictures, we were able to tear around the place and to be honest, given the size of the park, had a large portion of the place covered before midday. From then on, we dialled down slightly and re-visited the same attractions, had some food (most unpleasant, and highly expensive) and were out of there before 4.

The 15-minute extravaganza…

As is often the case with theme parks, it’s the attractions you’re least expecting any kicks out of that prove to be the better bets. There was some Jurassic Park effort where I got stuck sitting beside two guys on one side and two girls on the other (acting as a sort of midway pillar between them it appeared) in a raft, which was surprisingly more exhilarating than I was really expecting. The stunt show meanwhile, although providing a wealth of picture-taking opportunities was ‘mediocre’ to be honest and I was barely warm in the seat before the show was over again. No joke, it must have lasted 15 minutes and not a second longer – there was a bit of a storyline, more explosions than Baghdad has seen in recent years and then as quickly as it had started it was over again, with what felt like a few thousand of us all cramming for air on the way out.

Chinatown!

But the worst part was, with no sunshine knocking around, the intense muggy heat that left us both (me in particular) craving the cool refreshing spray of deodorant and a fresh t-shirt – which ended up becoming my first port of call after the trip to Universal. We were so bad in fact that we seriously tossed up the merits of taking a taxi rather than subjecting other transit users to our well worn-in clothing.

Into the evening and feeling much fresher, we headed out to Chinatown for the night to get some food, see if there was anything special about it and perhaps buy some souvenirs. Chinatown’s are one of my usual banes of travelling – they all look the same, i.e. crap, rely on some sort of ‘old-school market’ buzz to create any sort of atmosphere, are largely staffed by far more Middle East/Non-Chinese than the Chinese themselves and frequently contain little else that you couldn’t buy in an old Roches Stores if you could find one. Every now and again of course you strike it lucky with something most unusual, like my LED programmable belt in Hong Kong where I could have it scroll “You Love Thatsh…” in neon green lighting, but that about sums it up. While Singapore’s Chinatown largely follows this trend, there are perhaps better eating opportunities than at many of the other versions and in the end, with 4 meals split between ourselves and a number of Tiger’s, I was more than fit to roll home and pack for the flight to Bali.

All with the memory of using the MasterCard already well flushed out of my mind.

A pleasant morning in Singapore…

We met firstly with a distant friend of Annas for coffee (after an embarrassingly long time trying to find the only Starbucks in the building as it turned out). Note to all, the rainy season in Singapore this year (2012) seems to be particularly bad and so before we’d even managed to get out into the muggy midday weather, it was already tearing down with rain making every movement between buildings as rapid as possible. Moving along, we went down the main shopping streets, following our noses as long as we could (in between showers), and following the road all the way down past the famous Raffles Hotel, along past countless – although I did try to photograph each one – signs prohibiting eating, drinking, smoking, flammable materials, durians, cycling, dogs, feeding cats and skateboarding until we somehow made our way right out to the Singapore Flyer, one of Singapore’s major attractions and one, despite being on the relative outskirts of town, it seems they couldn’t be more proud of; even if it has since been eclipsed by some other big wheel in China.

They’re so proud of the wheel in fact, that the tickets, being honest, are a bit of a king’s ransom weighing in somewhere around 30 Singapore Dollars. Not only that, but like all good tourist attractions, it’s surrounded by countless other possible ways to waste money like flight simulators, ice cream shops, etc. all before you even actually get to the main thing itself.

From the top!

There’s a bit of an exhibition that appears to have been set up by someone who may have been smoking substances at the time just prior to getting onto the Flyer – and I mean that in a good way. You pass through some darkened halls with either neon lighting, or wild projections on the wall, or sometimes a combination of both; throughout which various facts, figures, historical items and stories are relayed via the whackiest exhibits you can imagine. It may sound more annoying than anything – and I’d say it would be if it was maybe your second or subsequent visit – but actually it’s a world better than the London Eye where you sort of just queue up like in Funderland and then all pile on with no sense of occasion whatsoever.

Anyway, once on-board, the whole thing takes about 30 minutes to get around and to be honest, even though the cost to me at least seems a bit steep, it was well worth doing and the views were unbelievable.

Back on terra firma once again, we eventually caved in and went to the overpriced local ice cream shop, which provided amusement for all the wrong reasons. The guy serving, seemingly unaware he was actually at work, had the music pumping and it came complete with all the bad words left in, as parents and young kids trying to buy an ice cream were treated to a hilarious and very in-depth musical breakdown of banging girls in a club. Understandably others may not have been so impressed with his tact, but I thought it was comedy gold if nothing else.

Standards!

Since we’d kind of consider going back to Asia and Singapore might also be a possibility, we decided in the evening to go out and see the kind of areas people live in in Singapore – since very few realistically live downtown. There were a few suggestions, mostly out near Changi (the airport) but we decided to go to a place called Holland Village. To be honest, with the rain still pelting down, the place didn’t seem as incredible as I might have hoped – although it was pleasant, and notably under widespread construction which always makes things look a bit dreary. We took a look around a supermarket though to see what kind of salaries would be required and I can assure you that the majority of Singaporean residents must be vegetarian judging by (understandably) the incredibly expensive cost of any meat. You have literally never seen pricing like it. There’s also a shopping centre with narrow corridors and a layout so confusing once you want to get out, that it took us some time to find a staircase to escape down.

Next day, Universal Singapore and then on to Bali…