For those of you who know me personally, you’d know how much I dislike Bali. But... with some serious renovations going on at home (and the better half and I stressed to almost breakdown level), we needed a quick escape. And 4 more VA sectors to retain platinum.
A luxury escape voucher for a large private villa in Seminyak was available (and looked good) and VA had well priced flights from Sydney to Denpasar via Brisbane, so we thought it was an acceptable way to go to Bali (and ideally never leave the villa).
We bid for an upgrade on the BNE-DPS sector ($5 above the min) and got it. J cabin was full. Really enjoyable flight over. Meals were to a much higher standard than the usual 737 fare and service was excellent.
Enjoyed a few days floating in the pool and not doing much. I’d been keeping an eye on the volcano situation, however didn’t expect it to escalate so quickly. We eventually received a text regarding the cancelled flight, and a revised departure 2 days later.
The villa offered 2 extra nights at a reduced rate, but I really needed to be home. I was also concerned that the revised flight wouldn’t go ahead (and it’s subsequently also been cancelled with another 48 hour delay added).
First step was to check Travel insurance options. No go on Allianz (purchased after September) and some success with Chub who said we are covered, but they only consider it an “inconvienience”, so $500 is all we can get.
So... we’re on our own! I start hunting options. A fast boat to Lombok seems like a plan, but there’s still the risk that it will close again too. The villa concierge was an absolute star and started making some calls. He said Lombok wasn’t a good idea. There’s another airport on the East Java Coast (4-5 hours travel, but all flights are to Surabaya and they’re full for days. Next option - drive to Surabaya.
The concierge calls one of his guys who’s running a bus there in 90 mins. 550k per person, roughly a 12 hour excercise. We stock up on chips and water and hit the road. It’s pouring rain as the glorified Hiace begins the 4 hour trek to the ferry port on Bali’s north Western tip. As we drive (and average a nearmiss every 15 mins), I try to book flights out of SUB. Everything is filling up quick! A lot of panic hits as I work the iPhone for hours. A very cheap flight is booked to Banjarmasin, in the hope of connecting to CGK from there. Ends up being $100 down the tube, as clearly everyone else is playing the same game and the flights from all nearby ports to CGK fill up. GA smartly sticks on an additional service out of SUB to CGK on a 330 in the afternoon, so I grab 2 seats before that also sells out. By this stage, I’m physically sick with stress (and car sickness from staring at my phone) and happy to get out of the death bus and stretch my legs as the bus waits inline for the ferry.
As hour 6 passes (and we are well into the dark hours), we finally roll onto the boat and make the 30 min trip across the straight to Java.
Once on the main island, the roads get worse. A lot worse. The “highway” is blocked in numerous spots (and reduces to one lane serving both directions) and clearly is not accustomed to the higher than usual traffic coming out of Bali, so the 250ish km trip is a 9 hour nightmare. On three occasions I thought it was all over, especially the one time the driver fell asleep and ended up in the grass.
We finally arrive at SUB just before sunrise, and just as a few flights to JED are getting ready to go so the place is a zoo. It was the most bizarre combination I’ve seen in a long time... thousands of pilgrims surrounded by stressed and tired white folk in bintang singlets. I’ve never seen so many people camped at an airport before. It was quite a site.
We had accepted that we would get the scheduled GA flight in the afternoon and try to crash at a hotel now. The airport ibis was, of course, fully booked. We decided to get the t bus to the GA terminal and see if we could find something there. It was equally painful, and the ticketing line was out the door, with plenty of crying westerners realizing they were stuck for days.
I was searching options to get home to Sydney. MH had some reasonable fares out of CGK, but we’d be pushing it to get the connection. We thought we’d try the impossible and see if we could get an earlier flight. My better half is VN Gold, so we approached the sky priority desk who confirmed us on the flight in 8 hours time, but suggest we waitlist for an earlier one.
GA had a dedicated “waitlist” desk, so we went up to it and saw a list about 100 long. Amazingly, with one glance at the Gold card, we were escalated to the top of the list and told to come back in 20 minutes. We returned to find 2 boarding passes for a GA flight that was boarding now. There was a bit of debate about paying extra charges, but this was eventually let go and we ran to get the last 2 seats on the first 737 of the morning out of SUB (and followed with some serious stares and abuse from other western pax).
I settled into a middle seat in the back row and nearly broke down. It had been the most horrific 24 hours! And we were only enroute to CGK.
On landing at a much fancier Jakarta airport than I remember, I was able to crack out the iPhone and book a very reasonable $650 CGK-KUL-SYD with a 10 hour transit in KUL. This leaves enough time to crash out at the KLIA transit hotel and get these awful clothes off.
I’m sitting now in a lounge at CGK very ready to get home. It’s amazing that after years of trouble free adventure travel through Asia and Africa, we finally got caught in Bali of all places!
I do feel real sympathy for those stuck there now without the Travel “know-how” to find a way out. It would be an incredibly stressful and upsetting experience.
I hope everyone here visiting the island at the moment finds my above escape story a little helpful.
A luxury escape voucher for a large private villa in Seminyak was available (and looked good) and VA had well priced flights from Sydney to Denpasar via Brisbane, so we thought it was an acceptable way to go to Bali (and ideally never leave the villa).
We bid for an upgrade on the BNE-DPS sector ($5 above the min) and got it. J cabin was full. Really enjoyable flight over. Meals were to a much higher standard than the usual 737 fare and service was excellent.
Enjoyed a few days floating in the pool and not doing much. I’d been keeping an eye on the volcano situation, however didn’t expect it to escalate so quickly. We eventually received a text regarding the cancelled flight, and a revised departure 2 days later.
The villa offered 2 extra nights at a reduced rate, but I really needed to be home. I was also concerned that the revised flight wouldn’t go ahead (and it’s subsequently also been cancelled with another 48 hour delay added).
First step was to check Travel insurance options. No go on Allianz (purchased after September) and some success with Chub who said we are covered, but they only consider it an “inconvienience”, so $500 is all we can get.
So... we’re on our own! I start hunting options. A fast boat to Lombok seems like a plan, but there’s still the risk that it will close again too. The villa concierge was an absolute star and started making some calls. He said Lombok wasn’t a good idea. There’s another airport on the East Java Coast (4-5 hours travel, but all flights are to Surabaya and they’re full for days. Next option - drive to Surabaya.
The concierge calls one of his guys who’s running a bus there in 90 mins. 550k per person, roughly a 12 hour excercise. We stock up on chips and water and hit the road. It’s pouring rain as the glorified Hiace begins the 4 hour trek to the ferry port on Bali’s north Western tip. As we drive (and average a nearmiss every 15 mins), I try to book flights out of SUB. Everything is filling up quick! A lot of panic hits as I work the iPhone for hours. A very cheap flight is booked to Banjarmasin, in the hope of connecting to CGK from there. Ends up being $100 down the tube, as clearly everyone else is playing the same game and the flights from all nearby ports to CGK fill up. GA smartly sticks on an additional service out of SUB to CGK on a 330 in the afternoon, so I grab 2 seats before that also sells out. By this stage, I’m physically sick with stress (and car sickness from staring at my phone) and happy to get out of the death bus and stretch my legs as the bus waits inline for the ferry.
As hour 6 passes (and we are well into the dark hours), we finally roll onto the boat and make the 30 min trip across the straight to Java.
Once on the main island, the roads get worse. A lot worse. The “highway” is blocked in numerous spots (and reduces to one lane serving both directions) and clearly is not accustomed to the higher than usual traffic coming out of Bali, so the 250ish km trip is a 9 hour nightmare. On three occasions I thought it was all over, especially the one time the driver fell asleep and ended up in the grass.
We finally arrive at SUB just before sunrise, and just as a few flights to JED are getting ready to go so the place is a zoo. It was the most bizarre combination I’ve seen in a long time... thousands of pilgrims surrounded by stressed and tired white folk in bintang singlets. I’ve never seen so many people camped at an airport before. It was quite a site.
We had accepted that we would get the scheduled GA flight in the afternoon and try to crash at a hotel now. The airport ibis was, of course, fully booked. We decided to get the t bus to the GA terminal and see if we could find something there. It was equally painful, and the ticketing line was out the door, with plenty of crying westerners realizing they were stuck for days.
I was searching options to get home to Sydney. MH had some reasonable fares out of CGK, but we’d be pushing it to get the connection. We thought we’d try the impossible and see if we could get an earlier flight. My better half is VN Gold, so we approached the sky priority desk who confirmed us on the flight in 8 hours time, but suggest we waitlist for an earlier one.
GA had a dedicated “waitlist” desk, so we went up to it and saw a list about 100 long. Amazingly, with one glance at the Gold card, we were escalated to the top of the list and told to come back in 20 minutes. We returned to find 2 boarding passes for a GA flight that was boarding now. There was a bit of debate about paying extra charges, but this was eventually let go and we ran to get the last 2 seats on the first 737 of the morning out of SUB (and followed with some serious stares and abuse from other western pax).
I settled into a middle seat in the back row and nearly broke down. It had been the most horrific 24 hours! And we were only enroute to CGK.
On landing at a much fancier Jakarta airport than I remember, I was able to crack out the iPhone and book a very reasonable $650 CGK-KUL-SYD with a 10 hour transit in KUL. This leaves enough time to crash out at the KLIA transit hotel and get these awful clothes off.
I’m sitting now in a lounge at CGK very ready to get home. It’s amazing that after years of trouble free adventure travel through Asia and Africa, we finally got caught in Bali of all places!
I do feel real sympathy for those stuck there now without the Travel “know-how” to find a way out. It would be an incredibly stressful and upsetting experience.
I hope everyone here visiting the island at the moment finds my above escape story a little helpful.
