The Wonderful World of Entertainment

27^th-28^th July 2006

It’s been three years since my last long haul flight, but the one that sticks in my mind is the one I took ten years ago. I had two suitcases, one with an orange sticker saying VERY HEAVY and they added up to 50 kilos. They were my worldly possessions, the things I had deemed important enough to take with me to my new life in Mexico, but that’s another story and the point is that two hours into the flight I was dying to be in Mexico, to see what it was all about. I had ants in my pants and was constantly off to the loo, for a quick chat with Polly and Mary in the smoking section and nothing I had brought with me on the plane could keep me entertained. So that was why I had the Miss V personal entertainment and long haul preparedness rucksack with me. Fourteen and a half hours plus a twelve hour stop off in Singapore. I was prepared for all eventualities. What I wasn’t prepared for was KRISWORLD (or the fact that thirty seconds after arriving at Heathrow we spotted the Singapore Airlines desk and changed our Singapore Bali connection to a reasonable two hours).

So stop me if you have experienced this system before, but me, I was blown away. Eighty films, countless TV programmes, music, games, all at the touch of a few buttons. Wow with this system even Flight path became exciting. The pages of the Sudoku book curled, I read about four pages of The Kite Runner (I know this may be the pot calling the kettle black, but I’m not impressed with Khaled Hosseni’s punctuation there. There’s different and then there’s downright: ‘What the hell are you trying to do there?’) and the ipod was positively ignored.

Two hours in Singapore was just enough time to buy a bigger SD card for the millions of photos I planned to take, have a fag, freshen up, walk to the gate and fill in the immigration cards. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t have KRISWORLD on this short hop, but after my second breakfast (mmm treated like Hobbits we were) I crashed into a deep slack jawed slumber.

So Bali. Well, I was kind of catatonic in the taxi but what struck me was the solid line of furniture shops from the airport to Sanur broken up with little patches of knee high grass and the odd grazing Oxen. I eventually realised that those birds hovering perfectly still in the sky were actually kites.

By mid afternoon we were on the beach lined with multi-coloured fishing boats, painted and shaped to represent elaborate fish. The sea was rapidly retreating to the reef and we watched the semi submerged fishermen casting their lines out.

Estrella and I went on a water mission returning with three bottles of water and three separate offers of massages. The offers started at 20€, but by the third person we were down to 5€ without even trying. We were all messed up with time so we kept saying ‘maybe tomorrow’ but it turned out to be a pretty effective way of haggling. So by five o’clock we were all being pummelled while I was receiving a simultaneous pedicure. Estrella was disgusted that my toenails bore remnants of varnish last applied in April, but man there’s other stuff to do in the world. Anyway, this tomboy now has red toes with eenie weenie flowers on them, even my pinkie!

Today was more of the same, beach, walks, swimming, massages, Estrella ruining the luck of one saleswoman by buying all her sarongs from a competitor ‘Why you no give me luck?’. Tomorrow is the beginning of birthday weekend and we’re off to Ubud up in the hills. We’re rested and limber.