I have just returned from 12 days in beautiful Bali. This trip was made to celebrate a couple of teenagers having finished there final year of school. We left from Perth on Garuda on on 21st of Jan there were 7 of us 5 women mid 40's to just 50! plus the 3 girls 17 -20 and we were joined later by another friend and and one of the girls boyfriends.
We arrived at the airport excited at finally being on our way our joy was short lived when 3 of us checked in together, and were informed that our suitcases were 9 kilo's overweight and that Garuda will not accept any overweight luggage, it was quickly determined that it was not my suitcase and the other two quickly started unloading there excess into their hand luggage and also into the empty handluggage suitcase that I had. By this time we are joined by another friend and when she put her suitcase that was 9 kilos over on her own. So of course she then starts to unload her stuff also into my suitcase. After 30 mins at check in (luckily for everyone else we were last) we head straight up in disbelief that we could be so far over. As we walk through the 1st security checkin the very nice man stops me and asks me to put my hand luggage on the scale, (my friends quickly walk on at this time) of course it weighs 9.5kg by this stage, luckily he must have been in a good mood and waved me through.
Nest stop hand luggage xrayed. you guessed it they take my suitcase and ask me what is in it (did you pack you suitcase yourself?) Of course it's time to open it up and once again my so called friends seemed to have disappeared. Well it was full of toiletries that just happened to be over 100ml so after confiscating them my suitcase was finally back to a reasonable weight. Apart from a little bit of confusion when it came to buying duty free and trying to use underage teenagers ticket we finally boarded our flight and took off on time.
I have travelled Garuda many times over the my last 10 trips, but we did get a little concerned when we asked if there was going to be a movie and we were told no because 'plane' was broken. Breakfast was served but after looking forward to getting my first cup of coffee for the day this was not to be, tea and coffee were not being served today. About an hour before landing we thought that even though we hadn't seen any flight attendants in the last hour we might ring the bell and get a drink, after 10 mins we were told we would need to go to the back of the plane to get it, gets a bit tricky when you have big queue for toilets and another for getting themselves drinks.
Anyway land in Denpasar quickly through VOA pick up the suitcases one of the girls had put there sunblock in one of the pockets in my case and that had leaked everywhere. Well off we go nothing to declare all the others go through and of course customs want to have a look in my hand luggage suitcase, (by this stage I was ready to dump it) they ask me if I have medication in there (how would I know)I say yes they ask what sort i say maybe panadol, after a short pause they wave me through once again where are my friends? Finally out of the airport and met by our good friend ketut a quick stop to the Bintang supermarket for supplies and then of to the warm welcome at the Kumala Pantai.
I hope I haven't bored you too much things greatly improved after this, though when I emailed my husband with out airport debacle (he just happens to be a customs officer) He reminded me of howmany times he has said DO NOT CARRY ANYTHING FOR ANYONE!!! and I wanted sympathy.
More to come later