Bali 2022

Today we'd be flying out of Bali. Nicky, John and Harry have a Jetstar flight at 1:40pm to Perth and then they get a Qantas flight on Monday morning to Sydney. I'm booked on a Jetstar flight close to midnight from Bali to Melbourne and then another flight from Melbourne to Sydney on Monday morning. We got a message from Graham saying that he is home. He didn't get much sleep on the plane and is still not feeling well. Nicky, John and Harry caught a Grab car at about 10:15am and mine came at 11am. I reached the Hilton Hotel at the airport at about 11:30. Luckily my room was ready. I was feeling a little fragile and wasn't hungry, so I forgot about lunch. Because I was tired and it would be a long night of travel, I took advantage of the hotel bed to have a rest. I set the alarm for 5pm just in case I fell asleep. Then I went down to the hotel restaurant to have some dinner. At about 6:45pm, I checked out of the hotel and caught a Grab car for the short trip to the airpor...

There had been a thunderstorm in the middle of the night at about 2:30am. It must have been very close because it was very loud and it continued for a long time. When I woke this morning, the ground was obviously very wet but the sun was trying to struggle through the clouds at times. The forecast for today was for more rain and drizzle. Harry woke me just before 7am all excited because he had seen a cat outside. Graham surfaced at about 9:30am and said he felt much the same as yesterday. I saw John at about 10am and he said Nicky was still in bed because she had been sick all night. He said she tested negative for Covid and it so must have been food poisoning. Graham left by Grab taxi at 2:45pm to go to the Novotel Hotel at the airport in preparation for his flight home tonight with Virgin (via Melbourne airport). Nicky, John and Harry spent the afternoon at Finns Recreation Club again. Originally, we had planned to go to a fancy restaurant for dinner tonight but Nicky had still not r...

Graham was still not feeling well but was feeling better than yesterday. John went to a local chemist to get various medications to help with his symptoms. Nicky, John and Harry went to Finns Recreation Club again at about 10am. Graham and I stayed behind at the villa and passed our time by reading again. The forecast for today was similar to the last couple of days: drizzle. Although it was cloudy, the sun did make an appearance once or twice. Sometimes the drizzle changed to heavy rain. Not beach weather. At about 3pm, there was sunshine and the radar on the AccuWeather app showed the rain moving away. Nicky and John were at Finns and Nicky was just about to pick up Harry from kids club and so I organised a Grab taxi to take me there so I could enjoy the sunshine for a change. Graham stayed behind at the villa. Some light drizzle returned at about 5pm and so we left Finns. The Grab taxi trip was slower than getting there because the traffic was heavy. While John and I were sitting in...

Graham was awake when I went out into the lounge room at about 8am. He had slept in the front room again but used ear plugs to minimise the traffic noise. However he still woke at about 3am - he thinks he is still on Sydney time. I ordered the same breakfast as yesterday. Graham made himself toast using the bread that John ordered yesterday. Nicky, John and Harry went to Finns Recreation Club for breakfast. Today the forecast was for more rain. It was overcast and the ground was very wet but there was only occasional light showers. All day from early morning until late afternoon, there was constant noise from the construction job next door. I'm not sure if it was sawing or sanding or something else. I'm not sure if it was drowning out the traffic noise or adding to it. Whichever way, it never let up for a minute. Nicky and John came back in the middle of the day and then left again to pick up  Harry from kids club so he could play in the Finns pool and slides again this afterno...

I managed to snooze until 8am. Graham and Harry were also awake but Nicky and John didn't surface until about 9:15am. Once again it was raining and they were forecasting more rain for the rest of the day. I was starving and so, at about 8:45am, I worked out how to order a bagel and coffee for delivery using the Grab app. It worked and I enjoyed my breakfast by 9:30am. Graham had decided to wait until John placed an order. Nicky and John managed to get more sleep in the cabana in the back yard because it wasn't as noisy as the front room upstairs. Graham managed to sleep until about 3am but the noise stopped him from getting back to sleep after that. He is thinking of sleeping in Harry's room tonight because it's a little quieter. Nicky, John and Harry left at about 10am to have breakfast at Finns. Graham and I stayed behind  at the villa. We couldn't see any point in going there in the rain. At midday, it changed from light rain and drizzle into a heavy downpour. Ni...

I had thought that the traffic noise from the nearby road might have kept me awake but I had no problems at all. It helps that I take my hearing aids off when I go to bed. Also most of the noise was coming from the shutters in the ensuite bathroom and so I blocked out the noise by closing the bathroom door. There was no noise at about 7:30am because a gardener was working in the yard using a wipper-snipper. He was also cleaning the pool. I saw Graham and Harry at about 8am but it must have been about 9:30am before I saw Nicky and John. They didn't look well. Apparently neither of them had been able to sleep overnight because of the constant loud noise of the traffic outside their bedroom window. Graham offered to swap rooms with them because he was confident he would be able to get to sleep despite the noise. His room in the building out the back was much quieter. Today the forecast was for more rain and drizzle. This didn't worry Harry because he was still able to swim in the ...

Today we would be leaving the Hard Rock Hotel and going to our next accommodation at Villa Litera in Canggu. We were in a routine now at the hotel. Graham would go for an early morning walk along the beach and then he and I would go down to the Rock Royalty Suite for breakfast at about 8:30am followed by Nicky and Harry a little later and then John. I had the Rockstar Big Breakfast again. It was another warm humid day with a mixture of clouds, blue sky and sunshine. The forecast was for 32C and drizzle. Occasional black clouds looked threatening. There was a timing problem for our move from the hotel to the villa because check-out time at the hotel was 12 noon and check-in time at the villa was 2pm. Graham solved the problem by organising a 2pm check-out for Nicky and John's suite. The Hard Rock Hotel was a great place to stay. It had many things going for it including: Very large pool with lounges, cabanas, etc Small pools for kids with slides Pool-side cafe Large restaurant Rock ...

Graham and I went down to breakfast at about 8:45am in the Rockstar Royalty level. The others were still asleep and joined us later. Instead of sitting at a table in the sun like yesterday, we went into the air-conditioned suite. Perhaps we should have tried previously because it was comfortable and it offered a (limited) buffet in addition to the menu options. I had the Rockstar Big Breakfast again. Harry was booked into the kids club again and was looking forward to the rock climbing. We had no success in contacting Sue in the US but they rang us on Facetime. After breakfast, I set out to go for a walk. The AccuWeather app showed no rain on the radar and said there would be no rain for at least 60 minutes. By the time I was walking past the pool, there were a few sprinkles of rain and by the time I got down to street level near Jamie Oliver's Kitchen, it was raining. So I turned around and went back to my room. About an hour later, the rain had stopped and there was some blue sky...

Once again I was woken by noise in the corridor and once again it was a sunny morning. A warm 26C with 94% humidity. We went down to the Rock Royalty courtyard soon after 8:30am - except for John because he was still asleep. Apparently John and Graham went to the bar after we got back from dinner. Nicky said that the bar rang them in the middle of the night to follow up on payment for two beers John had had. They weren't impressed about being woken up. This morning, Graham had the Rockstar Big Breakfast whereas I tried a beef mince dish with what seemed to be a Mexican name. Our table was in the sun this time next to the pool and so we were pretty warm. Harry was booked into the kids club again at 9:30am. Soon after 10am, I set out to go to the beach. I went out the exit near Jamie Oliver's Kitchen and then turned right. The beach was about 100m along this one-way street which turned right and then ran along the beachfront. The first pedestrian access to the beach was not attra...

This is a very comfortable hotel but it can be noisy. You can often hear noises in the hallway and knocking noises in adjacent rooms. This morning there was a very loud noise just before 6am. I'm not sure what it was but it could have been a low-flying plane or a truck. Perhaps it was just a thunderstorm. I eventually got out of bed at about 7:30 because noises made it hard to get back to sleep. Somehow I managed to stub the little toe on my right foot. I can't remember how or when I did it but I do know that it still hurts. Once again, I had problems with the hotel Wi-Fi and so I solved the problem again by using my mini Wi-Fi device. Opening the curtains, it looked like a bright sunny day. However my weather app was forecasting up to 40mm of rain. Currently it was 27C with a forecast maximum of 32C. Humidity was 89%. We went down to the Rock Royalty courtyard area for breakfast soon after 8:30am - except for John who had gone to the hotel gym and joined us a little later. Thi...

Although I had planned to sleep in, I woke at about 6am local time and eventually decided, having failed to get back to sleep,  to get up at about 7am. Graham contacted me at about 7:30 to say that he was worried about Covid because Allana, who had been staying with them, had contracted Covid. I gave him the RAT kit I'd bought with me and he tested negative. Nicky, John and Harry were still in bed and so Graham and I went down to have breakfast without them at about 8:15am. It took a while to find the restaurant because it was down a long corridor and there were no signs. It was a large restaurant and was crowded with diners. The buffet had a wide selection and there were two counters to place special orders. Graham explained that John had arranged express service at the airport last night to take them quickly through all the stages. This explained why they had arrived at the hotel soon after me despite catching a later flight than mine. Apparently, Harry hadn't slept on the pl...

I am due to fly out of Sydney for Bali on Jetstar. There had been lots of problems with Jetstar lately with delays and cancellations. For weeks, there have been media reports about Jetstar passengers being stranded in places like Bali, Japan and Hawaii. So I was nervous about how I'd fare today. The Silver Service taxi that I'd booked for 1pm arrived on time and so that was a good start. We reached the international terminal by 1:45pm. Jetstar's check-in was at counter K was quite a long walk. When I got there, there were plenty of people who had arrived before me even though it was three hours before the flight was due to leave. I'd booked to travel business class and so I had expected a short queue. Although there were only three or four family groups in front of me, the queue moved very slowly. It took about 45 minutes before I got the counter. One family group took almost 30 minutes - heaven knows what their problem was. Then again, I was relieved that I hadn't ...