Hehe I guess this is not a post worth waiting in this blog….plus it’s been almost two months since the trip; but anyway I thought I’ll post them up just as a personal notes.
I went to Bali on August 8, 2009 as a company outing program. Division, to be correct. There’s more than a hundred people participating. I was really reluctant to join it. Consider me as an acute anti-social being, please. I hate gaths. I hate outings. I love to hang out with closest friends and families only.
But the outing committee was consisted of several of my friends. And they were really persistent and kept on pestering me daily….in the end I succumbed.
I was scheduled to depart at morning from Jakarta with Lion Air, but there was major hiccup with the infamous new Boeing 737-900ER so the flight was delayed for a couple of hours and I had to wait for a substitute plane. Not a biggie for me. I’m quite patient when it comes to such thing 
I’m not so patient when it comes to flying though. I’m too afraid of it Much like PW, I enjoy the view but am dishearted by the fact that I’m flying up above
See? Aren’t the clouds pretty?
The Sky Underneath AirAsia
This is shot by a friend in another plane though. He flew with AirAsia. His pictures with a Canon SLR are so much better than ones taken with my old iPhone 2G 
Look at the blue sky! I’m so relieved to see such a clear, blue sky (instead of the grey-ish, polluted sky in Jakarta). Then I’m disheartened again to find that this sky is several thousands feet from the ground. Plus the fact that the plane I was riding actually emits green house gasses 
And the next second I thought the plane had gone to Antartica. I see tons of ice!
Cloudy With A Chance Of..Ice
Then I realized that I’m several thousands of feet from the ground. And I was disheartened again.
I arrived safely at one peaceful afternoon in Bali. The bus picked the group and fetched us to Erlangga for a little shopping. Then straight to Jimbaran for dinner. We sang and dance until around 10, then the bus took us to the hotel.
Now I was thinking that Aston Bali should be a 4-star hotel with nice rooms and services. Well, the room was nice, indeed. But the service at Aston Bali was less than acceptable.
First of all, they double-booked some of the room. My room was booked to someone else in the group too, so I had to wait until they sort it out. Took them an hour or so to give me a room! Mind you, all rooms had been booked by our committee days before. Why would Aston made such mistake?
I was already tired when I got into my room and found out that they didn’t put on any towels. Oh, wow. I called the room service twice because it took them sooo long just to provide me with a couple of towels.
The towels were handed to me about an hour or so later. At 1 in the morning. What the heck, Aston?
Thus my first day was ruined. Sort of.
The next morning we all went to Tanjung Benoa for water sports and games.
Tanjung Benoa
Arriving @ Tanjung Benoa
See me? Still pale. It was about to change in a couple of hours.
Anyway, I hate games so I didn’t participate. It was the time of the month so I didn’t do any water sports. So I was lazying around the beach, chatted with friends in between their water sports session, and helped keeping their possessions safe when they were doing their thing.
More like helped burying their possessions under the sands, actually
Scraping Sands @ Tanjung Benoa
Don’t you think I need a slimmer set of legs? And arms, apparently. Damn those fats. I gained 5kgs after 2 years ot working.
Anyway, people lamented on how hot and bright the day was, but for me the weather was perfect. It was bright and sunny, and wind was blowing, making it really comfy to sunbathe. And I did sunbathe, just like a special cute being I found on the beach.
The Sunshine Dog @ Tanjung Benoa
Hmm….he does look like enjoying every bit of the weather, doesn’t he?
I didn’t get burned at all though. Friends kept on calling to remind me not to get burned under the sun.We had lunch together at the beach hut, it was from Padang Sederhana, and it was delightful.
Here are some of us, posing after lunch. I think I have gotten a bit of color
After Lunch @ Tanjung Benoa
The horror started hours after that. I thought it was my usual gastric problem, but then it really hurt, and then I was throwing up badly. Then I know for sure I was poisoned. By the delightful Padang Sederhana.
Luckily, my father equipped me with some important drugs. Being a a little bit of med-freak family, I knew what drugs I had to combine to fight the bacteria. Then I laid down for a couple of hours, felt better, and get ready for the dinner party.
2nd Day Dinner
As good as it may felt, the bacterias still reigned and I couldn’t eat anything besides the soup before I ran to the toilet and threw up again. Whew! I took more med, called a cab and go back to hotel. My committee friends already rushed some other victims back to hotel earlier, and when I was in the cab I was called by a friend who informed me around 20 people had collapsed and apparently a doctor was already called. Geez!
I spent the night helping my committee friends looking after the sick ones. Consider me lucky, due to the proper med I was taking earlier, my condition was much better compared to the collapsed ones. Some of them got fever due to the infection, even.
Thus my second day was ruined. WTH, Padang Sederhana?
Third day, I was supposed to check out at around 9a.m. and went shopping at Sukowati. No chance, we were busy checking up on other (sick) participants, some of them were still beaten. After much waiting and debating, it was decided that the ‘healthy group’ would carry on the shopping activity, while the sick ones would rest at hotel and took taxi to airport later in the day.
Unfortunately, apparently the bus was filled with….careless ladies. They insisted to shop at Khrisna, again. Despite the fact that the schedule was already very tight. And then they shopped, and ran late, and insisted that the airline already informed them that flight would be delayed. Go figure.
Worse, the team leader was stupid enough to gather our plane ticket. I thought that she wanted to queue for us, but would still walk together but I was wrong. She walked in to the check in counter with our tickets, and left us behind. WTF? FYI, in Indonesia, you can’t get to the check in counter if you don’t have a ticket. And the leader left us with baggage outside the check in area.
After much talking with the security, one of us were allowed to go in. She came back with some boarding passes, but not all haven’t been checked in. The leader haven’t checked me in because my ticket was an online ticket, she needed to checked it in a different counter. WTH…..I shouldn’t have given my ticket to her!
And to make matter worse, last boarding calls were heard on the speaker. And I wasn’t even checked in. Delayed flight my ass!
I queued (thank God I didn’t have to checked in any baggage), ran to the gate, and managed to get into the plane at the last minute.
Thus my third day was ruined.
I swear I’ll never join any company/division outing in the future. It was disastrous, it was filled with too many people (esp. girls) who love to run late, yet couldn’t even figure out what Gate should she run to after seeing a boarding pass. Not a good combo.
It was a waste of money. I could have used the money to fund my first Singapore Trip which happened in the following week.
