I woke before the alarm and dealt with my chores while Ian was disturbed by the noise I was making.
At breakfast we were offered a buffet which was an offer of spicy rice or egg. Pretty red flowers were placed in our hair which made Ian instantly start sneezing.
Before 10:00 Putu had arrived outside our door, ready to take us to the airport. We paid our bill and left Sanur, realising that there was more to it than we discovered on foot. Ngurah Rai International Airport was considerably larger than I had anticipated and had eight aircraft on the ground at once, several shops and cafes and plenty of boarding gates.
Our flight was delayed by an hour and departed Denpasar at 14:07 and landed in Singapore at 16:13, 08:13 GMT, 2 hours 6 minutes later. Through the flight I saw a wonderful sight of blue sky, wispy white cloud and puffs of white cotton wool cloud, reaching to the blue ocean beneath. I took a photograph as it looked so beautiful.
At Changi Airport we arranged a room for one night in Hotel Grand Central and then took a taxi into the city to our accommodation. Parts of the journey were accompanied by a jingle percussion and I wasn't sure if the sound related to the time, fare, odometer or speedometer. For the first few jingles it was quite a pleasant sound but after a few minutes it became quite irritating. Our hotel room is in the centre of building on the seventh floor. It's window is at the end of a narrow unused space and can only be 12 inches wide. It doesn't allow any light into the room so we have to have unnatural light whenever we are in the room, regardless of the time of day. But, the room is ensuite and comfortable enough. A coffee and a slice of cake was calling from the restaurant in the hotel lobby so we succumbed to the calling and wrote our journals. As I entered the lift to return to our room I pressed the button for the seventh floor and the lift doors closed immediately, leaving Ian behind! Despite my very weak efforts to open the doors the lift starting ascending and I got the giggles, imagining Ian still stood outside the doors on the first floor!
When we went to go out to get some dinner we detoured to the swimming pool on the third floor to find that the lightening flashes and loud thunderclaps that we encountered during our snack had come to fruition and rain was pouring down from the skies above. Perhaps we had chosen the wrong time...
A kind gentleman with an umbrella escorted me across the road, and offered to fetch Ian across too, into the dry sanctuary of the shopping mall. In there we found a cyber cafe charging SGD 5 per hour and took the opportunity to read our e-mails while letting the rainstorm pass by.
We walked down Orchard Road and had dinner then strolled for an hour before returning to the hotel for some rest.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.