Bali Escape! -Day 1-
The long awaited day has arrived to escape the oven which was Singapore. Although less planned than our trip to the States, all of us looked forward to this date as a moment to escape the routine of daily life. The day’s schedule was extra packed, myself having a math tuition class in the morning before the flight. Soon enough however, we would be on the trip towards “The island of the gods”. We booked a cab from home, and it arrived in the form of a Sonata. As we only had two luggages (compared to the three we had during the trip to the States) we managed to fit all the baggage into the trunk of the Sonata, and we were off to Terminal 3 of Changi Airport for our flight to Bali. We arrived around 2.30pm and were astonished by the sheer lack of people at the airport. I personally have never seen so few people in an airport before, and we were hoping for a less crowded flight to Bali.
First, we decided to have a snack at “Heavenly Wang”. Despite what the name suggests, the experience we had there was far from “heavenly”. The air-conditioning was not working (or simply not turned on), and the toast that we ordered were not toasty at all. The taste had remained, but the crust of the bread was not even remotely hot. The coffee which we ordered with “reduced sugar”, arrived as if no sugar had been added whatsoever. (The coffee taste was good though.)
After that less than heavenly experience, we headed to the playground at Terminal 3. Ashley had a wonderful time running from place to place, while myself and my dad enjoyed the Osim “uPhoria” leg massager near the playground. As the time arrived, we approached gate A13 where the flight QR944 was awaiting. However, our hopes for an emptier flight was immediately crushed when we saw the snake-like queue outside the gate. The boarding was delayed around ten minutes, and we finally reached to the skies a t 4.50pm that day. We reached Bali Ngurah Rai International Airport around 7.20pm and we immediately were greeted with a queue that can only be described as amazing. Luckily, we found a queue dedicated for ASEAN visitors, and it wasn’t long till we cleared the security checks and headed to the taxi stand. The trip from the airport to our hotel costs 125000 Rupiah. However, the cab being a Vios, one of the luggage had to be placed at the back seats, and I had a less than comfortable experience back to our hotel. When we finally arrived at “Courtyard Marriott”, we had to pass through more security checks with metal detectors (The security is far from lax here). This was the first hotel I have been in where there was security checks at the entrance, and it was mandatory for all visitors and residents. We soon passed through all these checks and waited at the check-in area as my dad checked us in.
Another pleasant surprise was awaiting as we were informed that we have been upgraded to the “Premier King” room, with only one king size bed. Kindly, the staff provided us with another single-sized bed (no prizes guessing who slept there.).
As we arrived at the room, it was still being prepared by the staff, but soon enough we were inside the room. The room was impressive with a view of the swimming pool and had a massive restroom, with separate sections for the bathtub and toilet bowls respectively. We then decided to have a quick dinner as we landed quite past our usual dinnertime. We went down to the hotel’s restaurant, “MoMo Cafe” for our dinner. Ashley ordered Mac N’ Cheese, my parents both ordered Nasi Goreng, and I had the Mee Goreng, and we concurred that all of these were past our expectations for hotel food.
After dinner, we went back to our room, and called it a day.