Day 0 - Our Journey to Indonesia 2006 retrospective

Our departure was set for 3pm from Frankfurt Airport with Thai Airways International, enough time to arrive without any stress. The recent terror trouble at London Heathrow let me reconsider our arrival 2h before seem enough, but we had plenty of time - the only harassment at FFM was to get rid of any liquids from our handluggage, the check-in was straight forward and without any delay.

Ambra & Alex were so kind to lend us their backpacks, and obviously we've taken way to many things with us. From Frankfurt Thai brought us over to Bangkok, and with only 2h transit time, the next 747 brought us over to the Indonesian Island Bali, Denpasar, our final destination. The Airport's runway looks kinda funny, I wouldn't like to imagine what's happening if the plane's breaks are not working once (*splash*). Both Boing were quite comfortable, our travel-agency in Duesseldorf booked our places quite in advance very smart: The very last places at the end of the plane (row 72), we had our own two seats just for us own. But as Singapore Airlines and Emirates are the only airlines with seat-entertainment yet, this meant we needed binoculars to see the movies.

However, the economy class at asian airlines still allows to get drunk quite fast, they react on each finger-snip and bring wodka, whiskey, wine, water or whatever you else like to get asleep fast. The food from FFM -> BKK was quite nice, way better then on the trip back. Even though I hate long flights, we found enough time to entertain ourself, playing cards or finetuning our travel-plan (thanks to Stefan Loose & Lonely Planet).
On the BKK airport we had our first contact with the asian-type of shops and selling: A enormous amount of places in the duty free to get rid of your Baht, and for each tiny stand you found at least 5 asian girlies awaiting to service you.

As we arrived in Denpasar, the holiday was about to begin: at 5pm local time (CEST - 6) we made it quickly thru the customs (don't forget your visa fee), joked arround with the local police, picked up our baggage and looked out for a local Bemo to get us to Ubud as fast as possible. We haven't had any place in south-bali on our travelling plan, as
a) Kuta / Legian / Seminyak is supposed to be the touristic fassade of Bali with almost nothing typically local left but shops, hawkers, surfers and bars
b) The past two Bali Bombings kept sticking in our head, where 200 people died and more then 200 were injured
c) The first 60% of our holiday period was planned as cultural travel over the whole rest of the island

After bartering the driver down from 200% of his initial price, he brought us over to Ubud, famous to be Bali's artist and dancing center. If you are looking for balines culture, that's always the place where the travellers start their journey - and we were not disappointed. Guci's guesthouse was the first station, we've picked a room for 13euro / night, which was almost the most expensive acommodation for our whole stay. But this is going to be continued on our Day 1, as from now on:

We're on Bali, and our adventure begins!