Post #166 - March 26, 2013 - Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

What we did: flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; flight to Bali, Indonesia
Budget: 760k Rp/$80; Spent: 923k Rp/$97

We arrived in Guangzhou at about 5am local time and we disembarked the plane outdoors. Thankfully, the weather was actually very pleasant, much warmer than New Zealand had been at night. We passed through customs quickly and then realized we had nearly three hours to wait before leaving on our flight to Kuala Lumpur. We walked around for a bit but nothing was open, so we settled ourselves into some seats near an electrical plug and started watching a movie called Out of Sight, with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. It was pretty boring for the most part, but it was something to do.

Close to our boarding time we wandered over to our gate. Our plane to Kuala Lumpur was much smaller than our plane into Guangzhou, but it was still quite nice. We got another meal on the plane, but at this point we were pretty sick of airplane food. Our flight dragged on a bit and we were very happy to jump off of it in Kuala Lumpur.

We passed through security and customs with no problems and, because we were taking Air Asia to Bali and we were pretty sure it only has flights out of the older airport. We learned that we were correct and that we would need to take a bus to the other airport, but it’s easy to do that. In the meantime, we sat in the airport for a couple hours. We bought some coffees, Facetimed with Frank and Dan, and did some blogging. We were both feeling pretty out of it, but I think Patty was feeling worse than I was.

The bus to the other airport was cheap and pretty quick, and in no time our luggage was checked in and we were on our way to our gate. We tried to exchange some money for American, because we knew we would have to buy Visas on arrival in Bali and we needed exact change, but the money exchange kiosks only have US$100 bills. Not helpful. We decided that we would just figure something out when we landed in Bali and went toward our gate.

I was starving by this time and picked up a cheap chicken wrap from a restaurant near our departure gate. Unfortunately our flight was delayed by about 45 minutes and by this time we were definitely feeling the effects of traveling for so long. When our gate opened up we were very happy. It was about a 5 minute walk from the gate to the plane. I can understand why they built a new airport, because this older one is quite odd. When arriving in Kuala Lumpur from Thailand we had walked for about 10 minutes from our plane to customs. It’s a weird set-up.

The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bali was only three hours, but it felt like the longest flight out of the four we had taken since yesterday morning. Neither of us talked much and by the time we pulled into the airport in Bali, I could barely keep my eyes open. Thankfully, when we started walking I think this woke us both up, so we were somewhat clear-headed. We needed exact change for our Indonesian Visas, which of course we did not have, so we had to use an ATM. It was a little annoying, but this seems to happen often and no one was bothered by the fact that we had to bypass customs to get money out of an ATM then come back through customs to pay for our Visas. Everyone was actually really nice about it. It's just a money-grab anyway, it's not really a security thing. So $50 later, we were through customs and on our way out of the airport.

We picked up a cab a little outside the airport so that we could get a decent rate. Our hostel is in an area close to the airport called Kuta, which is a major touristy area. The first driver we spoke to had no idea where our hotel was, but the second driver we spoke to made an effort call someone he knew to ask for directions.

The taxi ride was about 20 minutes and cost about $5. This made us feel very happy to be back in Southeast Asia! When the taxi pulled up to the hostel, we were somewhat skeptical that this was the place, but then the owner/manager knew my name so that settled it. The hostel is a very strange looking place and not very welcoming at night. The owner/manager told us that he had overbooked his four-bed dorm so offered us a double room for the same price. This sounded great to us! Our room, however, definitely isn’t anything like what we had in New Zealand. We've booked two nights at this hostel, so decided that tomorrow we would go looking for better accommodations!

By this point we were absolutely exhausted and we just went straight to bed.