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  • Bali and Singapore
    • Day One
    • Day Two
    • Day Three
    • Day Four
    • Day Five
    • Day Six
    • Day Seven
    • Day Eight
    • Day Nine
    • Day Ten
    • Day Eleven
    • Day Twelve
    • Day Thirteen
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Day One - En Route To Singapore

Possibly the closest thing to a time warp, mentally at least, is a long haul flight. We've had a couple of drinks, eaten, watched a film, I've played a bit of Nintendo, read, yet still we're only four hours into the flight. How'd that happen? The film, only an hour and three quarters seemed Spartacus-esque in its length, and yet here we are, just passing over the Caspian Sea, with another 6,500km to go. The body clock doesn't help either - I'm in the funny middle period state of mind where it feels neither the home time zone (11:07pm) or most definitely not that of the destination (6:07am). You'll have to excuse my ramblings - everyone around me's either asleep or trying desperately to. I know I wouldn't be able to, so there's no point in trying.

We're flying Singapore Airlines to Bali via a two-night stopover in Singapore. It's always satisfying to finally down tools at work for the last time before a holiday, but this one doubly so.

The stress levels have been high recently and it all got capped off with the petrol crisis resulting in mass panic around the country resulting in bread and milk becoming gold dust. It wasn't helped either by a) us not knowing how we'd get to Heathrow with insufficient petrol to get home again or b) me earlier in the week not having enough fuel for a job interview in Guildford, meaning having to pay a ridiculous £45 for the privilege of going by train. No wonder people use cars more than public transport when it's costing me triple for the fab experience of being cooped up in a carriage with other weary commuters.

So we're eventually able to breathe a sigh of relief when the fuel crisis abates somewhat and coaches are running okay. It's a good time to leave the country too - leave it to get back to some semblance or normality instead of the two-hour long petrol queues. Go holiday. Treat ourselves to something nice. Yeah.

I don't like flying - I really don't. It's not something that's always bothered me, and I'd probably pinpoint it to the last five years or so. No particular reason at all, just a burgeoning sense of my mortality and complete loss of any semblance of control in my surroundings and destiny. It's not helped by the recent Concorde and Egypt Air crashes. As we arrived at Heathrow, I noticed that British Airways still have their (approximately) 1:5 scale replica Concorde standing proud at the entrance. I'm surprised it's still there, and it frankly can't be too long before being replaced.

6 hours 53 minutes to go.

So after suffering the dismally disappointing Terminal 3 at Heathrow, we spend an extended wait in the departure lounge. I can't help but always wonder if these 300-odd people that I look over, waiting bored like me, will be the last that I share the final few hours of my life with. I don't know these people - first class, 'Raffles' or economy (regrettably like us), and I always want to know how much of my apprehension they share. And that walk to the airplane on the corridored bridge. Are these the last steps on English soil that I'll take? Christ, you can tell it's late and that I'm tired - getting stupidly morbid, haunched in the dark over my journal, scratching down my indecipherably bad spider-like writing. Cheer up man - you're going on holiday!

So anyway, Bali. I wholly realise it's a bit crap going back somewhere only two years (nearly to the day) later, and serial holidaying can be unhealthy. Bali was just the most magical place I have visited ever, and Lisa felt the same. I had always said that I would like to go back in the future, and it our return actually wasn't really planned. We were originally thinking of Canada, the Maldives or Sri Lanka. I semi-seriously talked about how much I'd like to return to Bali, and the next thing I knew, within a couple of days Lisa had booked the holiday up, and there I was, well over a grand lighter in my credit card.

I'm well aware of the dangers of trying to recreate a perfect holiday - you're almost certainly going to be doomed to failure. And I have no doubt that some of the feeling I had towards Bali was down to the fact of it being my first time outside of Europe. But, as fabulous a time as we had, we did not get to see everything we would have liked. So hell, do it again and try to improve upon it. It's not like we're going back to the same hotel. Although I will admit that it's in the same resort - Nusa Dua (of which I will no doubt talk more of later).

But first we have two nights in Singapore, and that's a first. I'm hoping for some seriously quality shopping there, as well as, erm, the culture. And other stuff.

There's just so much I'm looking forward to - a Singapore Sling in the Raffles Hotel (hell, I don't even know why it's so famous - it just is, perhaps I should read up my Rough Guide), feeding the monkeys in one of the many forests across Bali, revisiting the heaving Kuta, seeing five-people-families aboard a single moped, the volcano, Tanah Lot, the cultural arts in Ubud, living on the golden Nusa Dua beach, doing absolutely sod all soaking up some rays and being force fed exotic cocktails. Fab! And moreover, most definitely, groovy. Just got to get off this bloody plane first.

And as we soar in darkness over the Himalayas, 6 hours 21 minutes to go...