Early evening Saturday 5th March. It was cold when we departed Dublin - very cold - about 3*c. After bidding farewell to  the two heiresses (Maeve agus Eimear), who looked suspiciously elated at the prospect of our disappearing for a while, we sailed away into the firmament with an one hour hop to London where we also bade farewell to Aer Lingus, for a few weeks. Check in for Qantas was a simple business (after a long trek to the appropriate desk) as the luggage had been "marked through all the way" back in Dublin. We had about an hour to spare between the formalities and boarding the long haul sky beast and this gave us plenty of time to look around Heathrow. It had grown a lot since last seen. Isn't it odd how airports get bigger while the world gets smaller?

The longest flight duration either of us had ever lived through before was 4 hours (luckily we haven't died through one yet). We were now facing a 13 hour trip to Singapore and wondered slightly how the bodies would bear up. We also wondered (less slightly) what the grub and on board films would be like, whether we'd have ample leg room and if we'd be able to sleep. I suppose it's hard even at the start of an exciting adventure not to think of things of such importance to us - especially the grub. At home we really don't believe in things like medicine. Good food is our motto for keeping well and we sure do like good food. You'd think with the amount we go through every week (even though there's usually only three of us in the house) that we had an army living at home. Surprisingly all this ingestion doesn't translate into corpulence. Must be something to do with metabolism because it sure ain't from overwork! Even our dog was "easygoing". They say you can tell a lot about a family by their dog.

Anyway the flight catering turned out to be A1, even if the films weren't. And we did manage some sleep to the extent that the rookie trip didn't seem much of an ordeal at all. Maybe it was too early for jet lag to set in.

We arrived in Singapore around 8 pm local time on the following evening (Sunday) having flown "against" the clock. Air-conditioned conditions in the airport insulate you from the climate change shock. However, herself wished to wave the weed (no smoking allowed on the flight) and to facilitate her need we ventured outside onto a rooftop garden. Immediately the heat (even at that time of the evening) registered big time. I suppose this was in part due to the shock of contrast after our last time in the open air back in Dublin. Later back inside Ber bought a camera (one wasn't enough for her to capture the full trip) and we said goodbye to three colleens on their way to Sydney for a year. Isn't life grand for the youth these days? We caught a different Qantas flight bound for Bali - another couple of hours in the air.

It was raining softly in Bali when we landed shortly after midnight at Denpasar airport. After retrieving our bags and stuff we found our transport (a taxi with a lad from the travel company through which we had booked our accommodation) to the Sanur Beach Hotel. We had a voucher for the taxi as well as one for the hotel, but in the confusion of the night I gave both to the travel rep, who had disappeared after depositing us at the premises. This dilemma gave birth to an embarrassing ten minutes trying to explain the situation to Reception. However, being the very friendly people they are, there was no real problem as we knew your man would be back in the hotel the second following morning and the vital bit of evidence would then reappear. And so to our room and at last to bed after passing by some wild looking Hindu statues watching over our welfare from the corridors outside. We slept like logs.