A Travel Tip for Bali

The events of the last 24-hours have confirmed to me that I am an amateur/novice traveller.

An amateur can further compound their limited knowledge/experience by travelling on Friday the 13th.  Don’t do that.

Organising an extended family holiday to celebrate my father’s milestone 80th birthday has been about a year in the making.  Many ports around the world were discussed with the final decision being a 10-day holiday in two villas in Seminyak, Bali.  Those making the travel plans included me, my parents, my four sisters, a few brother-in-laws, a cousin, and all 12 grandchildren.

It was decided we would travel during the school holidays, however, that did clash with my uni timetable.  Being absent for 10% of the content in a semester is an automatic fail and so my application for leave was taken very seriously and took a long time for a verdict.  I was living on the razor’s edge for about three weeks and then, just a few days ago, my leave was approved.

We booked our economy flights with Jetstar.  Don’t do that either.  I can’t begin to tell you the drama I have had with Jetstar, a budget airline off-shoot of Qantas.  Mistakes and errors and foul-ups and misinformation and being on-hold for up to 55-minutes at a time do not give you a warm fuzzy feeling.

I checked our passports and found the little guy’s had expired so applied for a new one and was satisfied I could relax on the passport front.

Yesterday was the day of travel.  We took the train to the airport as there is a station that stops right at the International Terminal.  Handy.  We heard during the train trip that our flight was two-hours delayed.  Standard.

At the airport, we joined the incredibly long queue to check-in.  And inched along and inched along until we were finally at the head of the queue.  I always scan the faces of those behind the counter and there was one woman who stood out as being the one you pray will not be allocated to you.  But it was Friday the 13th so she was the chosen one so up we went to greet the woman with the stony face.

‘Passports’, she said without looking up from her screen.

We obliged.

She looked at mine then said to me blankly, ‘Your passport is invalid; you won’t be getting on the flight today’.  You should have seen the little guy’s face; he looked so shocked and deeply concerned that after all the build-up, none of us were going anywhere.

I said, ‘Excuse me?’

‘Your passport expires in the next six months.  Indonesia has a rule where you cannot enter the country if your passport has less than six months before it expires.  If we let you on the plane, Indonesia will just deport you when you arrive’.

Who knew.  I said, ‘What can you do to help me?’

She shrugged.  Then told me I needed to go to the Passport Office and apply for a renewal.  ‘But you won’t get one today, it’s Friday.  Earliest you’ll be going to Bali is Monday.’

It was 2.30 pm.  Friday.  The Passport Office closes at 4 pm.  I thought I could get a taxi there, explain my situation, be given a consoling hug and lots of ‘there theres’ while they efficiently and swiftly issued me with a renewed passport giving me plenty of time to return to the airport for the 6.30pm departure.

I was dreaming.

I farewelled the kids, told them I hoped to see them soon, and ran, dragging my 25kg suitcase into the airport’s Post Office for new passport photos.  Don’t do that.  Do not get your passport photos taken at the Post Office at the airport.  It doesn’t fill you with confidence when they seem to struggle with knowing how to operate the camera, then have trouble working out how to print the photos, then tell you if the photos are rejected they will refund your money.  But I did it; I let them take my take my photo and the process was so arduous it cost me valuable time getting to the Passport Office.

Outside the terminal, I hailed down a taxi.  Don’t do that.  Get back on the train.  It’s faster and the Passport Office is right at Central Railway Station so train travel is the best way to go.  I know that now.  And, if you take the train you won’t be ripped off by an opportunistic Indian cab driver who joyously takes advantage of your fragile state, your blonde hair, and the fact you’re not looking where you’re going because you’re on the phone answering questions from your 21 relatives as to why you’re not in the Qantas Lounge.

So having told the cabbie I needed to get to the Passport Office as a matter of urgency and to therefore get me there in the most direct route possible in the shortest amount of time, he took me via Kings Cross, a part of Sydney in the opposite direction of where I needed to be.  The route took 20-minutes longer than it should have and he charged me $70.00.  Being in a state of anxiety bordering on a panic attack, it wasn’t until later that I realised he’d taken advantage of me.  Catch the train.

Out of the taxi I had to pull my suitcase along the street then lift it down a flight of stairs, then wheel it into a building and into the lift and up to Level 7.  I entered the Passport Office where I’ve never seen so many people crammed into a single room.  That’s when my heart sank.  Again.  I went up to the counter and I did have a lovely lady serve me who was empathetic but she explained that it was Friday afternoon and the office was shutting in half an hour and they didn’t have any more appointments for that day and so she was having to turn me away.  ‘And it’s the weekend tomorrow and we’re closed on the weekends so you won’t be able to start the process until Monday’.

‘Monday?  Could you start the process now so I’m at least in the system?’

‘No’.

‘Well my local post office is open tomorrow.  Should I go there and get them to approve my application and put me in the system?

‘No’.

‘Why not?’

‘Because your application could take three days to reach us.’  Well that’s weird as when I send an email the recipient receives it in a matter of seconds.

‘Could you at least look at my photos to see if you would approve them?’

‘Okay’.  I handed over the photos.

She took a lightning-fast look at them then passed them back.  ‘No, we can’t accept these.  They’re too washed out, underlit, and you’re not looking at the camera’.

‘Is there somewhere near here where I can get my photos re-done then bring them back for you to check?’

‘There are places around here’.

‘Where?’

‘I can’t tell you’.  There are moments when it’s not hard to convince yourself that oppositional defiant behaviour is the pre-requisite for a job in public ‘service’.

‘Why not?’

‘We’re not allowed to recommend one business over another but I can tell you, you might find a place in Railway Square’.  Right then.  I must have looked pretty broken at that point as the woman started to evolve into a motherly figure.  ‘Look, here’s the application form.  Fill out this bit and that bit.  Get a stat dec stating why you need one urgently.  We open at 8.30am on Monday.  Be here at 8 am as everyone arrives early and starts queuing up so you want to be at the front of the queue.  Come straight up to this counter and we’ll try to get it done for you.  I have to say we can’t do a passport in less than 48 hours so you are looking at earliest, having your passport on Wednesday, but, sometimes we can issue them sooner than that.  I just can’t promise you’.

‘Okay, thanks so much.  Will you be here?’

‘Yes’.

‘I’ll be looking for you’.

So I wheeled my luggage out of the office, down the lift and down a flight of stairs and into Railway Square where I had my photos redone.  Then I hiked to the station and became all hot and sweaty because it was Friday the 13th and therefore the hottest April day on record, 34C (93F), and caught the train back to the terminal.  Sorted out a Monday flight to Denpasar with no guarantee I will even be on it.  But…I had to book a flight so I thought I may as well live like an optimist.

I then wheeled my luggage back to the station and caught a train home, dehydrated with a tension headache, and walked in the door at 7.30pm.  There’s no point in unpacking so I’m living out of my suitcase until Monday morning where I will catch the pre-dawn train to Central, with my luggage, and camp outside the Passport Office until it opens at 8.30am.  My goal is to be at the front of the queue and I will stay there for however long it takes to get a passport.  Hopefully, that will be before the Monday flight taxies down the runway.

So I’m having the weekend at home and spending my time doing uni assessments, contemplating harvesting my homegrown broccoli, and watching Drew build a firepit.

I do hope I manage to get to the Villa because they provide a welcome drink on arrival and I might ask them for two.

And if you’d like to find out what happened to me when I went to Port Douglas for my father’s 70th birthday, click here.