Kimberley Trip, Day 1: Singapore to Bali

Thursday, May 23, 2024

We arrived in Singapore at about 6:40 a.m. As we have seen before, Singapore is a gorgeous airport, with flowers, fish, and the like throughout. We went to the Singapore Airlines lounge, marveled at the exotic food offerings, and got some morning coffee for our short stopover.

Our flight to Denpasar was also right on time and comfortable. We both had window seats for this flight, which was worthwhile because there was a fair amount of scenery below. At one point, one of the flight attendants came by to point out a couple of volcanoes (but not the ones that have been erupting recently) poking through the clouds.

Arrival in Denpasar was more straightforward than expected. We had done the advance Visa on Arrival (sort of a confusing name since we got the approval in advance) and advance customs declaration, so we flew through immigration and customs. We emerged to hundreds of people holding signs looking for specific passengers. We had hired a driver for tomorrow’s excursion to Ubud, and at his recommendation we went to the taxi desk at the airport, paid for our taxi to the hotel, and the driver came and led us to his taxi. It could not have been easier.

The taxi ride to the hotel was a study in contrasts. Once we left the airport grounds, we encountered a typical scene of buildings in various stages of repair, many motor scooters, and other vehicles. Our driver was very skilled at navigating the chaos.

Soon, we came to Nusa Dua, a resort enclave in southern Bali. After passing through a security checkpoint (having two older white people in the taxi probably made us look legit), we were suddenly among large hotels, palm trees, manicured lawns, and signs announcing an international conference being held in the area. We went through an additional security checkpoint and came to our hotel, the Grand Hyatt Bali, which had yet another checkpoint. The taxi dropped us off, and we walked through still another checkpoint, where our bags were x-rayed. It was about 1 p.m., but fortunately, our room was ready.

The hotel’s grounds are gorgeous, and a small army of groundskeepers maintains everything well. We spent most of the afternoon walking around the hotel grounds, discovering (and getting lost among) the many restaurants, swimming pools, and large beach areas. There were fewer choices for dinner than we initially thought because several of them (like the sports bar) are primarily places to drink and get light snacks rather than a full meal.

We chose the Garden Cafe, a restaurant near our room for dinner. It served a variety of Asian and Western dishes.

While we were doing this, our daughter Celeste was driving from Denver to her summer work assignment in upstate New York. She is currently on Central Time, so at about 8:30 p.m. (7:30 a.m. for her), we had a “phone” conversation with her, about 9000 miles away. It’s striking to me how easy this is now; not long ago, this would have been very difficult to arrange.

The jet lag caught up with us quickly, so we headed for bed early, at about 9:30 p.m.

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This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.