Bali mood in the air

The West Australian
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Bali planes are different. When you're heading to Sydney, Singapore or London, there's more likely to be a mix of people on board. Some doing business, some visiting family. But on Bali planes, it feels like everyone is heading off on holidays.

Straw hats and Havaianas, new cameras coming out of their boxes, green duty free bags of grog, no more than a litre each. There are excited kids, couples who can't see anyone but each other. Behind you, discussion about surf spots with a visiting Frenchman, beside you a young bloke ogling his Holden magazine, and his girlfriend reading the gossip pages.

There's the sense of anticipation of seeing somewhere loved again, or discovering somewhere exotically new. The couple by me have been six times, perhaps nine, they say. "It's so close — easier than going anywhere else."

Three hours and 24 minutes, and here we are, in air infused with a musty, spicy scent.

After the arrival halls of Denpasar Airport, the queues, the $US10 short-stay visa, porters who scoop you up and try to adopt you, the row of moneychangers calling exchange rates and then the sea of faces holding up hotel placards and names printed on boards, there you are, spat out into Bali.

Straight out into the surge of motorcycles, vendor cars, Hindu wall ornaments, statues and palms, deep tropical gutters, road workers with cotton cowls and statues wrapped in black and white cloth.

To baskets balanced on heads, roadside stores with furniture, weaving and stone carving. To TAKSI and KFC. Offerings on the pavements. Neat school uniforms. Dogs yawning. To Honda Revos, four-on-a-bike, and floral helmets. To something exotic and yet familiar. > Air Asia flies to Bali.


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