We arrived back into Bali from Dili without incident except for getting shook down for the cost of a brand new 30 day Tourist Visa despite the fact that we were only passing through for 24 hours before catching our flight out to Aus. We tried to buy the "transit visa" that does exist, but costs the same $25 as the 30 day tourist visa making it entirely pointless.
We were irritated when we forked over the $50 for us to enter for 24 hours, but at this point, after 5 months in the region if there is anything we've learned it's that there is really no way around the seemingly endless amount of red tape surrounding transportation, visas, entry and exit fees and the like...and well, you just gotta grin and bear it.
There isn't a lot of interest to report about our last 24 hours in Bali except that we cashed out all of the Agoda.com points we had earned through our 5 months of using the site regularly to book accommodation and got ourselves checked into a sweet spot in Seminyak. On top of that they had given our room away and so upgraded us into a King Suite. Balling!! It's such a contrast...having a nice place made us not want to leave the hotel at all, where as many of the spots we've stayed over the past 5 months have made us want to get out and stay out.
We had a few errands to handle including some last minute shopping and a final trip to a SE Asian pharmacy where they handed over 2 rounds of Amoxycilin antibiotics without so much as the flutter of an eyelash. See... we'd self diagnosed ourselves with Strep throat and figured that getting the pills in Indo would be way easier and cheaper then dealing with it in Australia where pharmaceutical drugs are actually regulated.
We found a good sushi restaurant and ended up eating dinner there twice...once the night we got in from Dili and the next night before we hit the airport for our red eye flight down to Melbourne. That day we tempted fate and rented a motorbike one final time...I was sure something was going to happen being that it was the last day and that I had already commented on how well we'd done with our motorbike rental experiences in SE Asia.
Thankfully travel karma was on our side and everything went without a hitch and we had all our stuff handled with plenty of time to spare.
Over dinner we chatted alot about the past 5 months we've spent in SE Asia ...it has been 20 weeks to the day. We've visited 10 countries: Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, and East Timor. We've had an absolute blast and have been lucky enough to meet up with some good friends and family along the way as well as make some new friends along the journey. There have been ups and downs, but mostly ups.
We're off to Australia to re-charge the batteries for about a month and to catch up with the old Aus crew for what is certain to be some great times.
In mid April we'll be hitting Mexico and will be picking the Blog back up again with regularity. Big thanks for all of you who have followed along in our adventures. It means alot to have people care enough to read our ramblings...so THANKS!
Cheers!
AM&G