Well, 'just back' isn't entirely true, we got back a couple of weeks ago, but this is the first time I've been able to cope with my post-holiday depression so after admitting I have a problem, I am now attempting to cure myself.
We're from Adelaide, so forgive the prolonged description of the trip there...
We left Adelaide on Saturday 24th May with Virgin (cheapie flight) with no incident, on time, and without even a blink at our two large suitcases (not full) and two large cardboard boxes full of Filo's toys for a couple of orphanages.
We collected our bags in Melbourne and hauled all the luggage up to the International departures area where we met up with my Mother (yes, my husband is a saint), and proceeded to the Jetstar check-in desk. After sussing out the departures board we realised fairly quickly that our flight was going to depart around 2 hours late. No problem, there are bars here.
We checked everything, watched it all whiz down the luggage belt, cleared immigration, and settled in at the bar for a spot of pre-Bali conditioning.
Once the flight actually departed (I have no idea how late we were, just that it was pretty freaking late...) it was a reasonably pleasant and uneventful flight. Can't fault the Jetstar service, everything was fine.
VOA and Immigration at Denpasar was very fast, paid in $USD (just find it easier) and before we knew it we were at the baggage carousel, picking off pieces of luggage and very much looking forward to our first vodka tonic. Little did we know that we weren't getting it for a few hours...
Bearing in mind that we were already several hours late (it was about 2am by this stage) and we had been travelling for most of the day (an hour from Gawler to the airport, then Melbourne, etc...) we were pretty tired. The orphanage boxes had made it, Mum's suitcase had made it, my husband suitcase had made it, and (you guessed it!) mine had not. Oh well - now that the airport was totally empty and we were informed that no more bags were coming out, we trundle over to the lost baggage counter and wait next to some poor people whose baggage had made it, but had been picked off the carousel by someone else who thought it was theirs!
I began making a report only to be told that we had checked in 4 pieces of luggage, and had received 4 pieces of luggage, so I couldn't possibly make a lost baggage report because nothing was lost (can't really fault that logic...) However, we had given Jetstar 5 pieces of luggage, but only received 4 baggage tickets. Of course, it has never occurred to me to check this before, I have always assumed that the good people who are employed by the airlines to check you onto a flight can actually count, but I assure you I will be doing so in the future.
It was far too early in the morning to attempt to persuade the luggage man at Denpasar that we were in fact missing a bag, so we headed to Customs (were they tried to slog us 'duty' for the orphanage toys, but after giving the man a dose of my signature 'stink eye' in an effort to make him understand just how tired and grumpy I was, he soon backed down and waved us through.
Of course our pre-arranged transport wasn't there to meet us (by this stage we were about 4 hours late - they must have thought we missed the plane), so was haggled with a taxi driver (taxi desk closed) and paid a little over the going rate to get us to Swastika Bungalows in Sanur...to be continued...