thousand of anything: What Happened At Bali Airport

Monday, May 24, 2010

What Happened At Bali Airport

This is my last post on my Bali trip.

There will be no photos so I shall (try to) keep this post as short as possible.

After our dinner at Trattoria, we went clubbing for a while at Q-Bar in Seminyak. I did not know this was a gay bar until we went in. Well, gay or not, we just wanted to have a good time.

The next morning, we woke up late, had a late breakfast and went for a swim at the hotel's swimming pool before checking out and heading to the airport.

At the airport, something happened. I was not allowed in by the officer stationed at the entrance! Both my friends went through without problem but not me. The reason? I did not have a print-out of my AirAsia flight ticket!

I told the officer that I never ever print out my flight tickets as I usually just inform the check-in counter my booking number and everything would be automatically verified. However, this was Bali, not Malaysia, so the officer instructed me to get a print-out of the ticket.

I was fuming because I did not see the necessity of this useless exercise. Surely the check-in counter would be able to verify whether I bought the ticket or not!

Anyway, I went over to the AirAsia counter but guess what? There was a long queue there!! By the time I got my print-out, my friends had already checked in and were about to have lunch. Damn!

Before I went to the check-in counter, I encountered another stumbling block. I had to put my luggage through the scanning machine. I placed my check-in luggage but not my hand luggage into the machine. The officer in charge scolded me and instructed me to put in my hand luggage too.

I asked him why the need to scan the hand luggage twice since they would be scanning it again before I enter the departure lounge later. He raised his voice and firmly said that all luggage must be scanned there.

OK, I was not about to fight with him, but I rolled my eyes and showed him my face. I was fuming! In my mind, I was saying, stupid bastard! Even if that's the rules (and it was to me, a stupid rule!) you don't have to raise your voice! Where's the friendliness that Bali people were famous for?

I managed to catch up with my friends and had lunch at a cafe in the airport building. During lunch, we heard an announcement coming from the overhead speaker that the departure gate for our flight had opened.

So fast? I looked at my boarding pass. It stated boarding time at 1.45pm. It was only 1.10pm then.

We went over to enquire the exact boarding time and was told it was indeed 1.45pm but they were announcing it earlier. What the crap for?

The announcement continued irritatingly countless times and I wondered how many people had panicked thinking they were late!

It was my first time going through as many as three unnecessary procedures at one airport! Oh well....

Despite that, I enjoyed my Bali trip and I even bought myself a T Shirt that says ....