Departures & Arrivals

What an interesting day yesterday turned out to be. We toured Bangli Mental Health Hospital. I have toured several similar facilities in developing countries in the past, but this one will be especially memorable. The staff were very informative and understood the need of treatment and programming but the facilities were very, very, basic. I would not want to suffer from mental illness and be hospitalized there. On the way back to Denpasar, we were treated to a suckling pig (Bali's national dish) for lunch. It was a local restaurant, with vendors selling tools across from where we sat. It was quite good (if you can get past pig hair in your rice). Today was goodbye to Indonesia as we flew first from Bali to Jarkarta. Things were going well until we were stopped by security as we were passing through immigration. "Stop!" "you two are over-stayers". Evidently, they counted our arrival day and therefore, we were in the country 31 days on a 30 day visa. Not good...They tell us we can leave if we pay 200,000 rupiah each. We have no rupiah left, so I must find an ATM. The guards send me WITHOUT my passport back to the entry of the international terminal. They shove me my boarding pass and tell me to bring back the money...I get the cash, and have to now start back through the security checkpoints without a passport. I flash them my boarding pass with authority only to see I am carrying Mr. Jhon's boarding pass instead of mine! Would you believe I still made it through 3 checkpoints? Mission accomplished and we sprinted to the gate. Four hours later (and now 10:00pm) we have arrived to Hong Kong. The good news is that I had booked us a lovely 5 star hotel on the 32nd floor overlooking the harbor. The bad news is that we just beat a typhoon in and now it is raining with very strong winds. We have been asked not to leave our hotel until they notify us to do so, possibly tomorrow afternoon. Oh well, at least I have a big comfy robe...