Twenty Hours in Island Hopping Transit


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February 4th 2017
Published: June 25th 2017
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Delightful Nok AirDelightful Nok AirDelightful Nok Air

How can you not feel confident boarding a purple airplane that has big black eyelashes and a big smile?
Our mission was to get from Ko Tao, a small island in southern Thailand, to Bunaken Island, a tiny remote island off the Northeast coast of Sulawesi, in Northern Indonesia. We had already invested one day of travel getting from the island of Ko Tao to Chumphon, on the mainland, and knew that the last leg of travel would involve a short boat transfer from Sulawesi to Bunaken island. We weighed out the pros and cons of getting the largest segment of the journey - which involved connecting with an international flight and going through both exit and entry customs - completed with one gruelling day of travel, and decided to do the full meal deal and get it all done in one long day. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and we would probably make the same choice again, to avoid sacrificing a full third day to travelling, but had not fully realized just how gruelling it would be. Twenty hours in transit, to be more specific. That is only four hours less than what it took to get us from Canada to Bangkok!

Our day began with a four a.m. taxi to the airport to
Air Asia Flight Crew Welcome to Bali Air Asia Flight Crew Welcome to Bali Air Asia Flight Crew Welcome to Bali

Its moments like these - and there are many - that keep us coming back. You gotta love Asia!
pick up our first of three flights in one day, all with different airlines. Can't say we ever did that before! All went smoothly, and we arrived early on a lovely sunny day to catch our Nok Airlines flight at 7:20 a.m. What a delightful surprise it was to hop on a purple plane that is smiling and has a full set of long eyelashes. How can one not feel good about getting on board that carrier? You gotta love Asia!

We arrive in Bangkok an hour later with plenty of time to go through all the necessary security and various other essential line ups to get our boarding passes and officially exit Thailand, and are en route to Denpasar, Bali on an Air Asia flight. It is another smooth flight, which ends on a particularly wonderful note. About a half hour before arriving at our destination, one of our airline stewards announces that he - and Air Asia - would like to welcome us all to Bali by bringing a few smiles our way. He then throws on a cool hat, some sunglasses, pulls out a little guitar, and does a live performance of four pop songs, including an Alicia Keyes track and Sting's "Englishman in New York", all of which had many on the plane singing along, with much laughter and applause. Yep, that was the airline staff welcoming us to Bali. You gotta love Asia!

We land on schedule at 5 p.m., but are a little pressed for time as we have to catch a 7:20 flight to Manado, Sulawesi and still have to deal with long line-ups to clear customs and get entrance visas to Indonesia before we can get to our third airline ticket check in counter. Consequently, we did not believe we had time to either get an Indonesia cell phone card, or any Indonesian money, at the international airport, as we always do, before picking up our next flight. So we complete the immigration checks, then relocate to the nearby smaller domestic airport with no functioning ATM's or Sin card sales outlets, to get our boarding passes, and find out our flight has been delayed an hour. We are starving - it is now 8 p.m. and we have not eaten since early morning - but have no money to buy any food.

Then we get on our third and final flight of the day with Garuda Airlines - Indonesia's primo carrier - to discover nice big seats, a great movie selection, and full meal service (we almost hugged the stewardess we were so happy) on a two and a half hour flight that cost us $97 CAN. You gotta love Asia!

After a very pleasant flight, we landed in Manado, Sulawesi, and forty minutes later arrived at our hotel just before midnight. Twenty hours in transit.

It was exhausting, and although Stan quickly located an ATM outside our hotel the next morning that solved our currency issue, I was so emotionally drained I was barely able to cope in my basic Indonesian with explaining to a unilingual Indonesian taxi driver that I needed to find a store to buy a Sin card for the phone I have become so dependent upon while travelling. ( Point to note for future reference - write down a few important locations on old fashion pen and paper! ) But we managed, and by 10 a.m. were deposited at a pier and picked up as scheduled by a little plywood transport boat sent by our resort to make the twenty minute trip across the bay - in rough waters that splashed us and tossed us around the boat - to Bunaken Island, our diving destination for the next week. Alleluyah!

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11th February 2017

You to yours and Lucy and I to ours. How goes the diving? Lucy and I leave for St Lucia in a few days where she will complete her certification and finally we'll be able to dive together. She also turned 18 yesterday -- the drinking age
there so we will not be relegated to the room in the evening. Great fun to be had!

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