Today we leave Bandung and jet down to Bali, a quick 1 1/2 hour flight, but getting there would be the fun part.

At breakfast, I opened the English printed newspaper The Jakarta Post, and to my surprise on Page 2, right under an article about Russia, was a touch of home. DATELINE: Mayville, WI. Small world. I wonder if the kids were our riding buddie Dave E’s grandkids!

emJay says goodbye to her new friend Astrid, the TNC Executive Assistant to the Country Director, Rizal. Fitri and Astrid were REALLY instrumental in making our visit go VERY smooth, handling all the logistics for us.

The estimate was 1/2 hour drive to the airport but it ended up taking over an hour. The traffic in Jakarta, and now Bandung is UNBELIEVABLE, though we did make it in time. For an urban area over over 4 million, the airport was about the size of the one in Baraboo. The one door in was blocked by a uniformed officer who checked everyone’s ticket before allowing you to enter. Then your luggage went through a metal detector for which I did not see an operator.

A mad dash to the Air Asia counter and soon we had our tickets on hand and headed upstairs to the one and only gate. Crowded and loud! We passed our goodies through another metal detector. As I picked up my goodies from the conveyor belt I noticed the woman monitoring the detection monitor was checking email on her smartphone!!!!

Soon our plane was called and we walked out on the tarmac to our plane . . . trouble was the plane on the left of the picture was just taxiing in from the runway . . .

. . . nobody seemed too concerned about it and we just ‘moved to the right’ as it passed by!

Soon we were in the air, looping around Bandung, and heading east to Bali.

Air Asia must size their seating for their average Asian customer who is not 6’2”. NO LEG ROOM and my knees pressed into the seat the whole ride.

We landed in Bali which because of its tourist jumping off point had a HUGE airport . . . and they were ready for Christmas even though Christians make up less than 6% of the population. Our driver from Netafari Villas,  Catah,  was waiting for us and we were whisked to the villas in 1/2 hour’s time.

After we checked in, and enjoyed a welcome cocktail, we were escorted our villa, Pucuk, and its welcoming front door.

The main room . . .

with lots of room . . .

. . . and an open outdoor bathroom!!!!

Here is one of the outside sitting areas by our pool . . .

. . . our pool!

We had not eaten, it was 9:00pm and too late for us old folks to go into town, so we order room service from the Netafari kitchen Two entrees and two glasses of wine for about $12USD!!!! It will be interesting to see what the rest of the place looks like tomorrow.