The Journey Home

After the Gili Islands, we start our long journey back home.  Because we could not change our ticket from Beijing, we have to find our way back there on the 28th.  So this is the account of days long trek with some fun stops along.

Kuta, Bali

September 24th-25th

After another harrowing boat ride back to Amed, Bali from the Gili Islands we took a minivan across the island to the Southside to a place called Kuta.  This was only going to be for a night to catch a flight from the nearby Denspasar airport to Singapore.  Kuta is probably more like what people picture when they think of Bali.  This is one of the major beaches and surfing hubs, but also one of the more developed and probably over developed places.  We were dropped off in the major beach center of town and it was crowded with cars, motor bikes and tourists.  It was packed full of commercial enterprises including large Western outlets like Quicksilver.  Our brief view was not charming.  We got a taxi to our hotel which was closer to the airport and away from the crowded beach area.  When we got to the hotel a manager proceeded to apologize profusely about how they could not honor our reservation (and online prepayment) due to flooding or some-such.  We were transferred to a “similar” hotel around the corner.  It was fine and comparable and they referred us to a market down the street called Krishna.  We had hoped to do some last minute shopping in Bali, but we had arrived late and were staying away from the main area.  This place turned out to be a near locals only market that sold a lot of goods one would find at a tourist place but at bottom floor prices. The only thing limiting a down right colossal shopping spree was the forethought of how to get all the weight home.  After that we ate some passable Japanese food at the attached restaurant.

 

Singapore II

September 25th-26th

We had a very early morning flight from Bali to Singapore and had a big day planned.  We needed a place to stay for the first of two nights* in Singapore.  After a disastrous stay at the hostel the last time we were here, we knew we needed to upgrade.  The problem was that the annual Formula One Indy car grand prix was happening during our stay.  This big event meant many booked places and higher prices.  Allyson found a package deal that wasn’t cheap, but was a good value.  It was a stay at a nice hotel on Sentosa Island.  Sentosa is an island just off the Southern coast of Singapore adjoined by a short bridge and monorail.  For the last several years Singapore has been developing this island to be an entertainment mecca.  There is multiple theme parks, a giant casino, several hotels and a Hard Rock Café.  Think, Asian Orlando with gambling.

The package came with tickets to Universal Studios Singapore.  So Allyson and I got to geek out and become kids again.  We took some time getting to the hotel, Hotel Michael, and dropping off our bags.  We headed immediately to the theme park expecting crowds, but we got there and the place was near empty.  We ate at Mel’s Diner using some vouchers that came with the package and walked around the park.  This theme park was a little different than the ones we grew up going to in Orlando.  It was smaller by about half the Studios in Orlando.  We did get amused by the things the patrons were taking pictures in front of: the advertisement for the Transformers ride that was yet to be opened, random props from the adjoining New York and Hollywood themed areas including a fake maitre de stand, and EVERY SINGLE character including all the “Diner Dancers” individually.  We were able to do all the rides and attractions in half a day and one we did more than once.  Highlights included the world’s tallest dueling roller coasters themed after Battlestar Galactica – nerd alert!  Another one was a surprisingly good but perplexing water stunt show themed after….WATERWORLD?!? Really Singapore, really?

After a full, half day of theme park we went back to the hotel to rest.  We had planned a nice night out including a trip to the casino.  We ate at the Hard Rock Café, mostly for their famed Caesar salad.  The place was packed and instead of playing rock music they were showing live footage of the F1 night race taking place within a mile of the café.  The food was good but expensive. ( think $26 hamburger) We then headed over to the casino.  It was nicely built, but there were several problems with it: it had no poker room, no video poker, the minimum bets were way out of my range, and there were no comp’ed drinks for playing.  We left after playing a slot machine out of pseudo-obligation to the gambling gods and losing immediately.  Because of Allyson’s enthusiasm for pulling the lever I got to see a slot machine engage a tilt malfunction for the first time.

The next day we slept in and then enjoyed our extremely delicious complimentary breakfast buffet.  We packed up our stuff and took the monorail and subway to our next hotel, the Singapore Hilton (Thanks again, Steve!).  *We had a day here to rest and catch up while we wait for our red eye flight back to Beijing with a layover in Shanghai.

Beijing II

September 27th-28th*  (Correction 27th-30th)

After an uneventful flight to Beijing we arrived at the airport and set off to stay at the Hilton.  After traveling in countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia where English is more commonly spoken we had forgotten how difficult it can be in China.  This is not to blame the Chinese, for many have no reason to speak it.  There was a definite communication snafu trying to get a taxi from the airport. (We had assumed wrongly that the Hilton, with street address would be enough for the cab driver to actual get us there.) Savvy traveler that she is, Allyson had gathered several Chinese business men who spoke some English to help. After a mini-United Nations like conference we were off to the hotel.

After arriving and settling in, we inquired about shopping in the area and the concierge pointed us to the famous Silk Market.  It was not very close, but we worked up the energy and hopped on the subway to do our last bout of shopping.  The market was a indoor 5-story building with crammed stalls full of very aggressive hawkers.  I had forgotten this aspect of Chinese marketing and was not happy to be grabbed by several merchants.  We both ended up being entirely too exhausted to deal with this intensity of shopping and only came away with one designer knock-off purse and a bootlegged movie. 

While wandering without Allyson, I heard the words “San ban no” being spoken and immediately recognized the Mongolian greeting.  It is not very common to hear that in Beijing, so I turned around and began speaking some Mongolian.  The couple was very shocked to hear it, especially from a white man.  Allyson was very proud of me for representing.  

After that I went back to the hotel for a rest; Allyson took advantage of one last pampering session at a nearby spa.  After three months of albeit wonderful travel, we were ready to get back home.  It was not an anxiety but once we had started travel back to Beijing for the flight home, our minds starting wandering back to Atlanta.  So we ate at a Western pizza joint that was good and celebrated our last* night in Asia.  We made sure to head back early for our early morning international flight home.

Enter one of my worst travel nightmares.  In my life I have never missed a flight due to my own error. We both are fairly paranoid about missed flights and were often mocked by hotel staff as the “crazy Americans” because we would request our pickups so far in advanced of our flight. And indeed, we usually were the first to arrive, even before the airline staff. So you can imagine our sheer terror when I casually woke up totally refreshed and saw the hotel alarm clock reading 7:30 am for a 8:30 am international flight. We cycled through stages of emotion from adrenaline surged panic complete with shaking to anger to fits of maniacal laughter in the manner of minutes.  How did this happen to two overly paranoid people? Well it was a combination of things. Even though we were in a Hilton, we were in Beijing and more specifically China. This meant that something as standard as booking a cab for the morning to the airport was impossible. We tried, but either due to a communication problem (staff don’t really speak English) or a systems problem (travel is not easy in China), we were not able to do so. This meant that no Hotel staff knew that we were running late to give us a courtesy call. We could have asked for a wake up call, but I was so exhausted from the taxi conversation that it slipped my mind. My bad. The real kicker was that because we were in a Hilton, we had a really nice room. The shades are blackout so we never saw the sun come up and the blanket was a thick down comforter which, due to experimentation later, I realized muffled the watch alarm clock, the only one we had. So without a prayer, expect the outside chance of a severely delayed flight, we still raced to the airport.  We had missed the last Delta flight out of Beijing.

After about 6 hours of working on how to get home now, including many lines, office visits, calls with long holding times, terminal transfers and bad directions we had found our new tickets home.  We were lucky in that Allyson’s new ticket cost only a $150 change fee.  Mine was not so cheap.   The bad news was Allyson had to take a flight two days later.  I needed to get back to get ready for work, so I took a ticket leaving later that same day.  It was a little sad (there were tears) having to finish the trip apart, but like all our other challenges on this trip, we knew that one day we would look back on it and laugh. It just wasn’t this day. So I headed home and Allyson headed to a Holiday Inn Express by the Olympic park to wait out her last two nights in Asia. To Beijing’s credit, on her final day Allyson finally saw blue sky in a typically smog choked city. She spent the day walking, shopping and getting her last minute fill of Chinese street food before leaving Asia. Luckily, the second time around she made all of her flights home.