Going Down Under

We rose and motivated ourselves relatively late this morning, as we suspected we wouldn't get much sleep on the overnight flight to Sydney. This isn't because we don't sleep well on flights, but because long-haul journeys offer the opportunity to watch several films back to back. So, after the lights go down, and everyone else snuggles under their blanket in an attempt to sleep, we watch our way through the catalogue of entertainment like children furtively reading by torchlight under the covers. If we are really lucky, our movie screening is accompanied by food and drink.

We fastidiously planned our couple of days we plan to spend in Sydney, as though it were a military operation. The laid-back approach afforded by our extended stays in other places is unfortunately not applicable to our whistle-stop tour of Sydney.

Once tired of planning, we headed back to Warung Soputan for a final dose of sweet, foamy teh tarik and roti prata with mung bean dal. It was predictably great and we bade farewell to our breakfast tradition.

Packing the final things into our bags threatened to be thwarted as the launderette we used to wash our clothes had unexpectedly closed today. We imagine picking up a neat package of freshly ironed garments, and slotting them into our rucksacks. Instead, I phoned and beat down the doors of the laundry business in an attempt to retrieve our clothes. Eventually, and understandably begrudgingly, someone opened up the premises, folded and returned the washed items. "Not ironed. Come back tomorrow?" implored the man. I tried and failed to explain that we had a flight in a few hours and returning the next day might well be a long and expensive affair.

With everything finally backed, our host very kindly drove us the short distance to airport, braving the scrum of traffic that was involved in such a journey.

Checking in was a relatively painless procedure, although we had a surprise departure tax of $20 per person levied - completely legitimate, but a shock after the $35 p.p. arrival tax.

Having paid out all our last rupiah, we were unable to buy any water for the flight at the inflated airport prices - a 4000 rupiah 1.5 litre bottle at the local supermarket suddenly commands the princely sum of 30,000 rupiah in the confines of post-security departures. A pox on the ingenious terrorists who manufacture in-air explosives from plain water!

Fortunately our access to the Premier Lounge also gave us access to small bottles of water, which we furtively secreted into our carry-on baggage.

The internet at the airport proved itself no better than anywhere else on the island, popping up and disappearing with the regularity of a parent playing peek-a-boo. I was less than amused as the metaphorical child, however, and consoled myself with the selection of beer, wine and food from the buffet.

Anker pilsener was the only malt-based beverage available, although the Jakarta-brewed beer also seems to contain 'jagung', or corn. I mentally added this lager to Angkor and Anchor, from Cambodia and Singapore respectively, as a homophonic beer of similar quality.

"How do you do?"

Sadly, the vegetarian options at such buffets are often limited. We tucked into a salad, followed by fried rice and vegetables, which were oddly cooked in a Chinese, rather than Indonesian, style. It's odd how just fried rice can have such differing preparations - this was certainly not nasi goreng as we knew it.

Fortunately, the wine selection, among the obvious Australian contingent, included a superbly sweet and fruity white from Bali's own Hatten vineyard.

Excitingly, the entire airport was plunged periodically into darkness, the melodic gamelan music in the lounge ceasing abruptly, as the power went out. I only hoped that the more critical functions are on a separate circuit, although it might explain why the WiFi is so poor.

On board our Malaysia Airlines' flight, the genial, everything-not-quite-as-it-should-be atmosphere  reprised itself from our outward journey. Among increasingly consternated outcries from the passengers about the entertainment system - for which the headphones, this time, had been provided, but which had failed to kick in at cruising altitude - it was rebooted, revealing an old Mac OS-style cross on a grey background, followed by the safety announcement (again). This procedure was iterated a few times before a missive arrived that the entertainment would be unavailable.

Without wishing to sound like a curmudgeonly old bore - I relish flights and look forward to the food, which is generally excellent, and the films on board, while the longer the flight the better to enjoy both of these - but the food was horrible. It was a travesty when compared to the delicious cuisine available throughout SE Asia - the rice and vegetables were both overcooked and flavourless.

We switched planes at Kuala Lumpur, where we saw no sign of either koalas or oompa loompahs during our short layover.

The flight from KL to Sydney took us back the way we came, passing almost directly over Denpasar. Still, the backtracking enabled us to peruse the film selection. We chose The Host out of the catalogue, which despite its name is not a 1970's horror, but a recent science fiction film. Sadly, the conceit of having aliens take over human hosts is a tired one and the script, including a voiceover from one human trapped inside their own body, was full of unnecessary exposition.

Taking two flights in a row often means eating two meals. The Denpasar to Kuala Lumpur leg presented us with 'supper', so I'm not sure how to designate the subsequent meal. However, as it arrived around 12AM, I think we can call it a midnight feast.

Mile-high meal

The caterers redeemed themselves with this offering of rice, a spicy kidney bean curry and a creamy vegetable korma. A baby corn salad, and a dinky portion of cheesecake also didn't go amiss.

And with that, I fell into a fitful sleep.