We have arrived in Bali! Our first day in Bali has us recovering from the journey it took to get us here. After spending a week in Sale, Victoria we had a huge day of travel with the girls. A 3.5 hour drive from Sale to Melbourne then a 6.5 hour flight from Melbourne to Denpasar and all the waits in between.
Leaving Victoria wasn’t hard. It was so cold and I hate cold weather so I really was looking forward to ditching the three layers of clothing and getting my white pins out again ready for some Indonesian sunshine. Our time there was spent with days in the park, feeding the cows, catching up with Noods’ family and old school friends and eating carbs.
Flying with kids isn’t my favourite situation. I can guarantee that any parent that has to be on a flight with their kids would prefer not to be there. I tried to get my hands on some melatonin prior to flying to take the edge off….well the girls edge off – but I couldn’t find any in store and was too late to order online. I purchased another sleep and calm droplet product that I’ve never used before. Probably best to give these things a test run first. I’ve always heard stories about people’s kids taking those things and having the opposite effect and didn’t believe it but now I do. Lola managed to prove me wrong. I’d given her the recommended dose, or maybe a little more and holy moly she was absolutely revved. It was like a whole new little Lola decided to show up right in the middle of a six hour flight. It was equal parts fascinating and frightening.
Before we left Australia I realised that I stuffed our Visa’s up. Essentially I should have applied for what’s called a B211A – the digital nomad visa. I wrote in a previous blog about this and turns out I left it too late to do so we had to enter on a Visa on Arrival (VoA). As we can’t apply for the B211A while in Bali, we now need to do some Visa runs in and out of the country every two months. There’s always a positive right? The B211A costs around $250 per person (minimum) and is valid for two months which can be extended two times. The VoA is valid for 30 days and can be extended once so we have booked a flight to Kuala Lumpar later in July to exit Indonesia and enter again. The only thing with this is that Bali wants to know we are leaving again so when we enter after our trip to Kuala Lumpar we need an onward ticket somewhere else. We were looking at maybe Singapore for the next trip unless something else comes up. The flights to KL were cheap and accommodation was super affordable and we figure that if we’re spending a minimum of $250 on a visa anyway (B211A) we may as well go travel with that money and that’s the positive! Some extra travel to countries we never had in our thoughts.
It wasn’t what we had initially planned but it also adds in another little element of surprise and lessons to teach our kids, that things don’t always go to plan so adapting is key.
Landing in Denpasar is always busy and I managed to pre book the hotel pick up service for an easy transition to the hotel as it was so late at night. I found my name in amongst the rows of drivers waiting and before we knew it we were in the hustle and bustle of scooters, tooting horns and Bali smells.
As we adjust to our new life of working and travelling with the girls the slowing down component wasn’t as hard to achieve as I thought it would be. It’s nice to not have any plans or any need to be anywhere. We have friends visiting for Noodles 40th and the girls are enjoying spending their days with them. Mila has been Verity’s little sidekick, with the two of them sharing a scooter. Mila on the navigating and Verity’s understanding nature of ‘it’s all learning’ which it is.
Mila managed her first bartering success yesterday at the beach when she wanted a kite. The vendor asked for 300,000Rp but after several negotiations she managed to get it for 100,000Rp. He even put it together for her and gave her a lesson. She was stoked.
There is so much learning to be had outside of the classroom. Finding places, ordering meals, counting money, negotiating, people skills, learning a new language and experiencing moments of being uncomfortable. It’s been great just observing it all.
Next stop is Canggu for two weeks and then who knows where. It’s a good feeling.
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