Indonesia 2010 Days 0-1

020410 0033 local time (GMT +7)
Surabaya Airport, Indonesia

I'm back with another trip report, less than 3 weeks after my first. This one will be much shorter of course.

Mad rush down to the airport after work, where I met up with Jinjun, Paul, Hafiz, Calvin and Shuotian in that order. Had a bite at Popeye's and presented Jinjun with his birthday present. Hope he likes it.

We then ran for the gate, having only 15 mins before scheduled tine of departure... only to find that the plane was delayed. Luckily though it turned out to be a special livery.

Eventually we boarded, and were soon on our way, passing by stuff like a CX 777-367, a JAL 777-346ER and 9V-SPP. Takeoff at 2217 was slightly rough, but not very.

The flight itself was possibly the longest sector the 3 of us had flown together. This says a lot considering it was 2:15. Dinner was chicken with potatoes or seafood rice.

Landing on runway 10 at Surabaya was rough, with an on time of 2208, during which we noticed that the tower resembles a lighthouse. Also, the first plane we saw was a CX A343, B-HXA.

We cleared immigration after deplaning and were treated to the realization that the landside of the airport isn't air conditioned. The night's not going to be comfortable. At least there's a 24 hour place here.

0733 local time (GMT +8)
PK-GZI over Bali

Yay we survived the takeoff!

The night was a little restless, but at least I caught some sleep. Still feeling dead tired though.

Walked out to the plane at gate 8 and took off at 0713. Pretty ok so far, except for a rough takeoff, albeit with a powerful climb.

The volcanoes we saw on the way were really scenic. Also Jinjun tells me we can see Agung. Time to go find it.

2100 local time (GMT+8)
Bali, Indonesia

That was a pretty good pair of landings our plane did. First aircraft we saw was our own 9V-SRC.

Getting our bags proved to be a snap, and we then caught a cab to our hotel, the Vilarisi in Kuta.

The hotel was nice, but despite our need to rest, the room wasn't ready. We dropped off our bags and decided to "Jalan-Jalan", hoping for A Vision of thr Isle of the Gods, as Bali is otherwise known. We saw Kuta beach, with it's many sunbathers and surfers having a good time, and the more subdued Bali bombing memorial.

We then returned to the hotel to rest. Calvin and I concussed almost immediately, while Jinjun, who had managed enough sleep in Surabaya, managed to stay awake long enough to find out that...

Mt. Aging was closed! He woke me up with this shocking piece of news, and, faced with this huge problem, decided to go for lunch at the hotel restaurant.

We discussed plans and settled on climbing Mt. Batur instead, our original plan. We tried, but failed to wake Calvin up to enter our room, so we had to ask for a spare key.

After resting a while, we took a walk out again, to watch the sunset near the beach. On the way, we decided to plan something for the next day, and had a tough choice between watching wild dolphins or white water rafting. In the end, the dolphins won.

We then took a cab over to Barong beach to watch sunset and planerise. The sunset was simply beautiful, but far away, shrouded in mist, Agung stood taunting us.

After it got dark, we set off for the return trip to our hotel, and had dinner at the hotel restaurant again. We then decided to turn in early, for tomorrow will be a long day.


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