On My Way Out

Like any savvy traveler, I arrived for my flight 2 hours ahead of time. Like any traveler who has ever been to the Denpasar airport in Bali, I now know how pointless this is.  I have heard horror stories of the harsh rules of AirAsia, how I will be overcharged for all my luggage and fees will be tacked on at the end. My check in went a little something like this, walk to a machine, tell machine my booking number, walk through security with all liquids and pointy objects safely packed away. The only surprising part came when we got to the 'passport check', over which there was a sign which read 'Departure Fee'. They barely glanced at my passport to see if the name was the same as on the boarding pass, when I was asked for 40,000 Rupiah. My Balinese instincts told me to haggle with him, but his 'I don't give a damn' pout made me decide against it. This is not a big amount, despite all the zeros, but it now means that my perfectly calculated budget now gives me no room for lunch. I had taken out just enough money to get to the airport and have a meal with no left over currency! I had been so proud...To withdraw more of this currency, or to wait until Thailand? My stomach will decide for me in a few hours, I'm sure. There are 2 wings to the terminal we are in, one overcrowded with no air conditioning, and one empty of people with the AC at a comfortable breezy level. Ainhoa and I are sitting in the latter, and I keep trying to figure out why others are not doing the same, the sheep. There is a woman constantly making announcements, and as in every airport there is a ding ding ding intro to her speech. This noise is of course just frequent enough that you want to stab yourself and start to develop an unhealthy level of hatred for a woman you have never met before. A minute ago she made an announcement for what I heard to be a Ryan Air flight to Jakarta and thought how funny, I had no idea Ryan Air ran here. Then I realized it was a Lion Air flight announcement and had a small chuckle to myself. Only an hour and a half to go.

I'm very sad to be leaving Bali. There is still so much that I haven't seen and I feel like I was just getting to know my way around. It's an interesting thing to only brush the surface of a new culture. I have learned so much, and yet all that learning has only uncovered to me how much more there is to know. This past weekend I have spent not in traveler mode, but with the members of my new Balinese family. I made no long trips or huge adventures, but took it easy at Sedana and Senih's house. The warmth of this family is reason enough for me to want to come back to Bali. When you travel, it is so easy to become overwhelmed with the differences between your normal way of life and the way you are doing things now, so to be able to spend time in a family setting was perhaps the best way to say goodbye to Bali - and hello to the next leg of my journey. On Friday night I experienced the full embrace of a small village and it was like nothing else I have ever seen before. We went to Abiansemal, Sut's village, where our makeup and hair was done by Sut's neighbors. We were then
performance and then talk about final dance class and then that's it really