Getting to Singapore

Awake at 4am this morning, my taxi arrived at 4.45am. Ika wished me a good journey and said the house will look good after the painters have finished.

Flight out of Bali to Jakarta was on time. I chatted with a German expat I see everyday in Global Xtreme. Isn’t it funny, I see all these people everyday, but don’t know them, guaranteed, I’ll be on a visa run to Singapore with at least one of them. This guy is a Cologne FC fan, so we talked soccer for a few hours.

Our flight from Jakarta to Singapore was delayed by 3 hours. One Aussie ‘went off’ at the Garuda staff in Jakarta. “You wait until 5 minutes before take off, to tell us that the flight is being delayed 3 hours, how f**king incompetant,” he hollered. Not that it would make any difference, the best thing anyone might tell him was , ‘plane coming.’ I have to say that after observing the Sukarno-Hatta terminal layout, I can only conclude it was designed by retards. Here’s what happened. We all checked in at the gate, waited andwere told the flight was late. People started heading back to the duty free / restaurant. Problem is, the X-Ray / ticketing is at the entrance to the gate, not as you board. With people going out, and coming back, and going out again, after already clearing ticketing, it was a ‘lunatic’s birthday party’ trying to figure out who the heck, was actually booking in to board the plane. Once the plane arrived, the staff clearly had no clue as to who was onboard, and had to do a ticket check and head count.

We got to Singapore at 2.20pm, well after the time I could of got my visa in. Smart planning, and I’ll be out of here tommorrow night.