Hi all.

In the last letter I had the plan all set out, nothing could go wrong: I would be discharged without a problem (no need for another pcr, poq or anything; the WHO had decreed that I was non infectious after 10 days of isolation), stay at a hotel, already booked, fly out on Sunday

I had intended that the last letter was to be the last, but a few more quasi disasters, well, no, just bowel tightening events, have happened since then.

Well…Saturday morning, I’m all packed up, the doctor has come in again, had a chat, shaken hands, almost gave me a hug, the cannula is finally taken out, the nurse has given me a sheaf of papers to sign, all in Indonesian so I had no idea what I was agreeing to, and sat …and sat….and sat….

Then a text came from the finance department of the hospital…’we have sent the bill (almost $7 000) to the insurance company. Can you call them and rev them up about the Guarantee of Payment?’ So I did, and the chica on the line said that, yep, the assessment team is working on it now, and then they will send it to the management and we will email the hospital asap.

OK. ‘Do the management work on weekends’ I tentatively asked. ‘Yes, I think so’ was the comforting reply.

So I sat and sat and sat, and …….4 hours later the guarantee came through. What a relief! I was seeing myself in some sort of Kafkaesque reality loop, stuck in a Balinese hospital with a lovely nurse, never getting out because each extra day’s bill had to go to the team, which wouldn’t reach a decision until the next day…….

But once the final email hit the finance office I said my fond farewells to the lovely nurse, and hit the road.

As there was no mirror in the hospital room…why? I have no idea, I didn’t shave for about 2 weeks. As a result I looked like some bush pig that had come out of the undergrowth.

When I finally got to the hotel Episode (what a name!) I started to shave, but the razor couldn’t cope, so I looked pretty much as though I tried to shave without a mirror. Later I bought a packet of disposables which ripped through like a whipper snipper.

The Episode hotel is a great place; very comfortable and quiet, with a balcony overlooking the pool…

After 10 days of pretty bland food, and no real appetite for days before that, I splurged out on a splendid meal at the hotel. Splurged is scarcely the word to use, as food is so cheap. The meal, a delicious fish steak on a bed of spicy veg…

…a crème brûlée of captivating unctuosity…

…a large Bintang beer. It was so good to have really tasty and stimulating food after the blandity of the hospital’s.

I also hit a spa and had a foot scrub (transforming feet that would make an elephant’s foot seem silken smooth, into something resembling a baby’s bum) and a glorious massage.

I got to and from the spa place on a Grab bike. This is like an Uber, but you get on the back of the motor bike, grit your teeth and join the throng of other lane changing, risk taking bikes, driven by exceedingly skilled young men, who weave in and out, and manage to slip through gaps between cars that, like Homer’s clashing rocks, threaten to close well before the back half of the bike has made it through. But all was fine, and the wallet, as well as the body, was barely scathed.

The plans for the flight home went into disarray at 9 in the morning on Sunday. The flight was to leave at 12.45, getting to Melbourne at a respectable 8.10 pm. What could go wrong? Well, consistent with Jetstar’s appalling record of punctuality, the flight was delayed until 3pm. They of course are very sorry, and their thoughts and prayers are with us, and they know we will understand!!! Bloody hell!

The people here are amazingly polite and friendly and welcoming. The receptionists at the hotels, the security guys outside, the people in shops, random people in the street. There are wonderful smiles and greetings. The grab bike guys gave such sun eclipsing grins when I thanked them in Indonesian, and uttered the other words I know ‘bagus sakali’ (that’s great, for those nonpolyglots.)

So I headed off on another grab bike, toward a barber that the Internet swore was open on Sunday. Not true…so the driver and I trolled around finding that barbers here do have Sundays off, and beaten and unshaven we returned to the hotel. Moments later I was in the supermarket buying the disposable razors.

My Dad used to say ‘by goose’ when something was good, and I thought it was just one of the many words that he made up and used often. I gather that he picked it up from the locals when he was in Indonesia during the War.

Now the final step, flying out. Getting through passport control was easy enough, and the three hour window that they advise could easily have been less than two, but it’s better to be safe than missing a flight. It seems Jetstar is closing its check ins earlier in an attempt to get more punctual. It didn’t work in this case. After all of the security checks, there was one last one, where the staff rifled through the hand luggage. It was pretty cursory, but if it stopped even one terrorist from blowing up the plane I guess it was justified.

The flight home was as good as one could expect.

So, that’s it from texinturkey for this holiday.

Kendine iyi bak as the Turks say…look after yourself.

Ciao

T