Getting to Bali: an adventure in itself

42 hours.

That was how long it took to get to the other side of the world.

From Queensbury, New York to Canggu, Bali.

We flew out of JFK Airport (another thank you to Bryce’s dad for driving us downstate).

As soon as we got to the airport we quickly checked our bags, filled with three months worth of necessities, got our tickets, made our way through TSA and found our gate.

We had a couple hours to spare so I downloaded as many games and episodes of Married at First Sight as I could to keep myself entertained on the grueling flights.

It was finally time to board, we got in line when they called our boarding group and the trip felt like it was officially beginning.

We found ourselves on an “Airbus” - a double decker airplane, and made our way to seats 53D and 53E. Moved the complimentary pillows and blankets out of the way and settled into our seats for the next seven hours.

It was an overnight flight that included dinner which didn’t get served until around 10 p.m.

I don’t really know what it was that we ate. Some sort of chicken, green beans and some Risoni.

But I do know that Bryce’s stomach was messed up after that and we turned down every other meal offered to us for the rest of the trip to Bali.

With the exception of ice cream. I always said yes to the ice cream.

The seven hour flight was spent watching a comedy special Bryce downloaded in preparation, playing games on our phones, trying to sleep and periodically checking on the little screen in front of us how much time was left until we landed.

I fell asleep a little towards the end of the flight but Bryce was awake the whole time.

When we landed in Germany for our first layover it was morning time and we had about two hours to kill until we got back on the airplane.

We took a bathroom break, sat outside our gate and talked to each other about how bad the next flight was going to be.

Bryce tried to take a nap, sprawled across three or four seats while I was connecting to Wi-Fi to let my parents know we landed in Germany.

The two hour layover went by quickly and we were getting back on the plane before we knew it.

Actively trying our best to mentally prepare for the next 14 hours in one seat.

But really there is no way to prepare, you just have to do it.

So, there we are, back in 53D and 53E, giving each other the look like “here we go.”

An hour or so into the flight the flight attendants brought out some lunch. I don’t even remember what they were serving but whatever it was wasn't worth the stomach ache so we politely declined.

We spent a few hours trying to sleep.

I got a little bit of rest meanwhile Bryce again, got none.

After completely giving up on getting any real sleep we each watched Netflix on our phones for a couple hours.

When we got bored of that we decided to have a little more fun and play Mario Kart on my Switch.

We played a few rounds of the game until that got boring too.

The whole flight is kind of a blur honestly.

All I know is we did too much sitting, watched too much tv on our phones, didn’t get enough sleep and were daydreaming about how nice it will be once we finally get to our AirBnb and can lay down.

Over the 14 hours, Bryce took a lot of breaks to the bathroom. But that was less about actually going to the bathroom and more about having an excuse to move around.

Let’s fast forward now.

We landed in Singapore!

We were actually very excited to have a layover in Singapore. Bryce did some research before we left and found that there are a lot of cool things to see and do there.

For example, there is a rain vortex which is the largest indoor waterfall, there is a suspended trampoline and walking net almost 30 yards above head, hedge and mirror mazes, a rainforest park and more.

We thought wow there's no way we can get bored in this airport for nine hours.

Once we got there we quickly learned that in order to get to the building, “Jewel,” that houses all these experiences, you have to leave the airport.

That would entail getting some sort of visa and having to go through TSA again once back in the airport.

Annoyed, we started walking around the airport aimlessly.

We did find a butterfly garden though and that was a little bit of fun for the 30 seconds we were in the too crowded and too hot tiny room.

A little bit later we also found a small outside section with a short ramp walkway and horse sculptures but that was all the excitement we had for the first half of our layover.

We got fed up and decided to find something to eat.

In order to do that though we had to find somewhere to exchange money first.

We gave the money-exchange-woman 40 USD and 30 Taiwan dollars that Bryce had leftover from his last trip to Asia and we got 98 Singapore dollars back.

At this point we hadn't really eaten anything in a pretty long time (except a yogurt on the plane) so we were starving and a bit hangry.

Unfortunately, none of the food at the food court looked appetizing.

We stopped at a 7/11 where I settled and got a premade sandwich that I realized afterwards, didn’t really look like it was made with real meat.

Bryce didn’t get anything.

We sat for a little, tried to find a lounge we could rest in but the free ones we found were full.

It took a while but we finally found something Bryce would eat in this little cafe tucked in the middle of an assortment of food stands.

After he was slightly refueled we decided we would go see if we could access the rooftop pool.

We got there and saw it didn’t open until noon so we made the walk back to our terminal and killed a couple hours laying in a dead end hallway.

It was finally noon and we took the 10-15 minute walk back to the pool, paid our 20 something bucks each to use it, got changed into bathing suits and made our way to the bar to get a drink.

We didn't plan on drinking, especially on a mostly empty stomach, but the guy at the bar was pretty convincing.

We got the cheapest thing on the menu which was a Tiger beer.

Enjoying the sun, the pool and doing something besides sitting in the airport had made the mess of not getting to see all the cool experiences in Jewel easier.

We relaxed for a couple hours, the bartender brought us a refill we didn't order or have the money to cover (still not sure why) but we finished them and went back to our terminal because it was time to board our last flight to Bali.

We had to go through a mini version of TSA outside our gate and then we waited in line to board our flight.

It was a quick three hour flight and we would be in Bali in no time.

Bryce was awake the whole flight but I ended up crashing and sleeping through all three hours, waking up periodically when the flight attendants would bring drinks around.

Then we officially landed in Bali.

It was nighttime, around eight p.m. and Bryce had us speed walking to get out of that airport in record time.

We had our Covid vaccines validated, bought our 30 day visas for about 30 USD and waited at baggage claim for our uncomfortably large duffle bags.

Once we had those (mine took a while to come out, I was getting a little worried it was left behind somewhere), we filled out a form for customs, found an ATM to get some Indonesian Rupiah and stopped in Telkomsel to get Bryce a SIM card for his phone.

That was all squared away and we could now order a Gojek (Bali’s version of Uber) to pick us up and bring us to our AirBnb.

We were in the Gojek and it felt so nice to know we had made it and were finally on our way to our place for the month.

Bryce warned me about the traffic in Bali and I saw a video of it but it was wild to see it in person for the first time.

Everyone is on everyone’s butt, there are mopeds swerving through anywhere they can fit and there is a lot of honking going on. Not an aggressive kind of honking though it's more of like a “i'm passing you” or “i'm coming around the corner” kind of warning honk.

I’d say that was the first culture shock I had.

There were about three times I thought we would hit the person in front of us during the drive but we never did.

It took an hour but we finally made it to our AirBnb.

We were greeted at the door by our host and given a quick tour before we were shown our bedroom.

After the most insane traveling experience I had ever had we were at our destination after two long days and I had never wanted to lay down in a bed more.

Despite Bryce's best efforts to get some sleep throughout our journey to Bali, he set a new personal record and was awake for 50 hours straight.

We let our families know we made it, quickly unpacked while we talked about how insane that entire experience was, showered and crawled into bed.

We fell asleep eager to find out what memories and experiences our next month in Bali would have to offer us.