NOTE – This part of my travel stories page contains my book – Island of Solitude – that I wrote as a memoir of what our lives were like during pandemic lockdowns in Bali. We were stranded there for over two years, on a tropical island that was devoid of tourists, and were able to explore and move about, alone, for the entire time.
I will be posting this book chapter by chapter, and it will remain here, free for readers of The Travel Author forever.
Island of Solitude – Chapter 1
“Run!”
Everything about the current, rapidly evolving situation in Australia, and indeed the world, was perfectly summed up in that one simple word.
Little did I realize just how much those three small, seemingly innocuous letters would have the ability to shape the next four years of my life.
It was March of 2020, and I’d made the decision, months ago by this time, to completely transform my life. Quitting my high paying job didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time. Neither had selling my car, liquidating assets, and cancelling every account that I’d ever made with everything from insurance companies to the local library.
I was committed to changing my life. A total and complete overhaul was in order, and I knew that if I didn’t dive in, boots and all, then there was a chance, just a small one, that I might chicken out.
I was not going to let that happen.
My thought process at the time is best summed up by a fictional character from the incredible mind of Tom Clancy, one of my favourite authors.
“When he reached the New World, Cortez burned his ships. As a result, his men were well motivated.” – Captain Ramius, The Hunt for Red October.
Of course, in the 1990 film of the same name, Ramius is portrayed superbly by Sean Connery, and he absolutely nailed the above line, delivering it in his distinct, characteristic Scottish brogue. This, if anything, adds a hell of a lot more punch to its delivery, and injected a little more starch into my resolve whenever I thought of how much I was risking on this incredibly life-changing decision.
What no one, least of all me, saw coming was a pandemic that would shut down the entire world.
Which was devastating for someone that had just tossed it all in in a bid to become a full-time travel writer. I guess that’s what they call irony.
So, in mid-March, a full week before I was due to front up at the Virgin Australia check in counter at Brisbane airport, my concern that I would even have that chance began to peak. Rumours had started about possible airport shutdowns around the world. In Australia, it was becoming obvious that high ranking decision makers were getting nervous.
I was getting nervous.
I still don’t know exactly what it was that made me jump the gun like I did. Perhaps it was my sudden and prophetic ability to read between the lines. More likely, it was simply good old Aussie common sense. In the end, whatever it was, I wasn’t ready to place my trust in anything that any journalist or reporters were saying.
I couldn’t just sit and wait, hoping that they wouldn’t shut the airports. There was no way that I could afford that. I’d burnt my ships months ago, their blackened hulls barely recognizable as the waves of my old life lapped lazily at their sad skeletons, taunting and teasing my decisions.
Which is why I reached out to an old friend.
This was someone I trusted. Someone that I knew had the ability to analyze the situation, and provide me with some well thought out, constructive advice. Her reply came back in that one simple word – “Run!”
So, I ran.
It was late at night as I hastily opened Skyscanner and began feverishly searching for flights. My Virgin Australia booking for Bali was in four days. I needed something sooner. Much sooner.
I settled on a flight in two days’ time. Thirty-six hours away to be exact. It would give me enough time to tie up some final loose ends and say my goodbyes. At the time, I thought it would be for a few months. How naïve we all were at that point of the pandemic.
Virgin refused to change my flight. I guess they were beginning to worry, just like everyone else. Even so, it only took one call to their help line to realize that it’d be a better chance that I’d already be aboard my flight in thirty-six hours than that I would have progressed any further in their queue. Despite their constant assurances that my call was important to them.
In the end, I took the hit. I booked the flight and would handle a refund, if any, on my original flight later.
I needed to get out of the country. My bank account, while quite healthy, would look a darn sight better from Bali, where I could live for a few years on the same amount of funds that would only last me six months in Australia. I simply couldn’t afford to stay, and if I did, I certainly didn’t enjoy entertaining the prospect of begging for my old job back.
Cortez didn’t do that, and I winced in physical pain at the mere thought of Sean Connery giving me that disapproving, sidelong stare, one eyebrow raised, his piercing gaze slicing through me.
I didn’t sleep that night, and by the time Good Morning Australia started the next morning, I was packed and ready to go.
In hindsight, I’m not sure if I would have made the same decisions that I did back then, if I’d known how long the pandemic would last.
Would any of us?
I bid farewell to my son, who I lived with at the time, and promised that I’d be back in a couple of months to visit. Little did I know that it would be over two years before I’d see him again.
In the end it was probably for the best that we didn’t know. I’m not sure that I could have stayed the course and fully committed to the path that I’d set myself if I had. Thinking about it now, it seems strange that the thought of setting off into the unknown is somehow less daunting than the prospect of facing a future that is more transparent. I guess it’s as they say – knowledge is dangerous. Although ninety-nine times out of a hundred I wouldn’t agree with that, on this occasion, it seemed appropriate.
Brisbane Airport was in a shambles when I arrived. Confusion was everywhere, seeping through the staff, passengers and security like its own mini pandemic. No one seemed to know what was going on. Everyone had their own personal opinions, and this made a simple process like checking in for a flight a nightmare that should easily have been avoided.
Something that I’ve learned about check in staff in Australian airports, is that they really have no idea how visas in Indonesia work. They make it a lot harder than it is. The confounding part of this is that it’s almost entirely an Australian issue. I’ve flown to Indonesia from nearly every international airport in Southeast Asia, as well as a few in Europe and the Middle East, and never had this issue in any of them.
The problem seems to revolve around the Visa Free Arrival, which allows Australians to fly to Indonesia, in most cases Bali, and stay for up to thirty days without the need for a visa. Technically, you should have a return flight booked, or at the very least an onward flight. They never check, or ask for proof of this in Bali, but in Australia, the check in staff put on their little Indonesian Immigration hats and become like Military Police.
Now, you really can’t complain when they’re following the letter of the law, but the confusion really comes when you tell them that you don’t need a flight home, as you’re not going to be availing yourself of the Visa Free Arrival, and instead will purchase a Visa on Arrival. Then, you plan to utilize the sixty days that visa grants you to apply for a six-month visa.
Honestly, the numb looks on the faces of the four or five check in staff and two supervisors I attempted to explain this to would have been comical, if not for the fact that I was silently panicking that they might red flag me and not permit me on the flight. Airline staff don’t enjoy being embarrassed, and I’ve seen passengers bumped from flights for less, even when they were totally in the right.
Being bumped was entirely possible, as the tension around the airport was on a knife’s edge. Everyone could feel it, and it only got worse when word began circulating that they’d announced a possible full closure of Australian borders in the next forty-eight hours.
In the end, a third supervisor informed me, in no uncertain terms to book an onward flight, or I wouldn’t get on the plane. So, I did, and eventually lost that flight and the money I spent on it. At that stage though, I just did what I had to do.
The other interesting point to note about leaving Brisbane airport that day was the fascinating phenomenon that caused almost every staff member that I met to turn into an amateur psychiatrist.
“You’re leaving the country?”
Standing at passport control, boarding pass in hand and backpack on my back, I’m fairly certain it was the first time I’d ever been asked that question. At first, I thought it was a joke, then maybe some sort of tricky new immigration question that I had to get right in order to proceed.
“Ah, yeah,” I replied hesitantly.
“You don’t seem certain.”
“Yes.” I drew my shoulders square and forced a smile. “I’m heading to Bali.”
“Hmm.” The immigration officer frowned and looked at my passport. “You sure you want to?”
“What do you mean?”
I was really confused now.
“They’re shutting the borders in a few days.”
“I know.”
I then broke the cardinal rule of passport control. Never, ever, under any circumstances make a joke.
“I guess it’ll be a long holiday then.”
The confident smile that I’d spent the past minute painfully conjuring up froze on my face as I realized that I’d just screwed up. I’d traveled dozens of times in the past, and knew better than to joke with customs, immigration, or pretty much anyone at an airport, including the probationary kid at McDonalds.
“Well, it’s not too late to change your mind.”
I stared at the officer a little longer than was probably smart, before I shook my head slowly. I wasn’t trusting myself to form words anymore.
“OK”
The officer handed back my passport and I continued on my way. It hadn’t really occurred to me that they’d pushed all the passengers through the manual passport control instead of the auto gates. Perhaps they wanted a last chance to convince us that we were throwing our lives away. That we shouldn’t be leaving the country.
Perhaps the immigration officer was a psychiatrist in uniform.
Who knew? By this time, I was lost. A thick blanket of fog had settled over my mind, and I stood in front of the departures board for a full minute before I actually registered what it was I was searching for.
Bali, Denpasar, Gate 22.
Hopefully, arriving in Bali might be a slightly smoother experience.
Arriving in Bali was a breeze compared to leaving Australia. In fact, you would have been forgiven for thinking that word of an impending pandemic hadn’t even reached Indonesia yet. Bali’s Ngurah Rai Airport was simply business as usual.
This is fairly normal for the Balinese though. They generally don’t let very much phase them, and as a result they tend to live their lives with a jolly outlook and a smile seemingly frozen on their faces. This is one of the reasons that travelers such as myself will continue to return to their beautiful shores. Or in this case, the airport.
Passing through the airport, I purchased my visa on arrival, knowing as I did so that my recently procured flight to Kuala Lumpur was now useless. Moving away from the counter, visa and passport in hand, I made a mental note to contact Air Asia and attempt to secure a refund.
As I passed by immigration, it occurred to me that if they’d had any concerns over airports shutting down, that they probably shouldn’t have even let me in the country. If they’d heard the news of Australian borders closing over the next couple of days, there certainly were no indications of that either. The first to become concerned over that type of news would most certainly be foreign countries with travelers stranded within their borders, unable to return home.
As it turned out, I passed through unchecked, and, low and behold, no one asked for proof of a return or onward flight booking. Silently, I wished that I’d had the entire Virgin Australia check in staff on facetime, just for the opportunity to say “told you so”.
The arrivals hall at Bali airport was chaotic as usual.
As a regular traveler, I’ve often commented to my travel companions, on most occasions my girlfriend, how the type of reception that you receive at an airport is generally a true reflection of what you can expect in the country itself. It’s akin to watching the extended trailer for a new release movie, before watching the movie itself.
In this case though, it’s already too late to back out.
Two totally opposite examples of this theory are Fiji and Bali.
In Fiji, you leave your plane and walk along a beautiful open-air walkway into a wonderful immigration hall where you’re greeted by several locals playing guitar, dressed in traditional attire, singing, smiling, and being generally welcoming. They aren’t expecting any money or tips and are just being genuinely nice human beings.
In Bali, you’re rushed past signs that warn you that you can be arrested for carrying nearly anything into the country, before you’re forced to wait an hour for your luggage to arrive. Then, you emerge into a solid wall of humidity that is compounded by the five million taxi drivers jostling and yelling, trying to charge you ten times the average price for a ride to your resort that’s located just around the corner.
This is not to say that Indonesia is a horrible place, because I love the country, but is a very interesting insight into the greetings you receive in both these places, as well as dozens of other airports around the world that I could use as similar examples.
Pushing my way past the lines of taxi drivers, ignoring their calls and brushing away from outstretched, imploring hands, I made my way into the car park. There, sitting in a small white Daihatsu was someone I hadn’t seen for over a year.
My mother has lived in Bali for over twenty years. When I decided to uproot my life and become a travel writer, it only made sense to begin in Bali. Not that I really needed to visit – I’d holidayed on the island a dozen times over the past decade or so.
Starting the journey that was to become my new life in Bali just made sense. Especially when my mother owned a large, five-bedroom house in the beautiful beachside neighborhood of Nusa Dua. Leaving three suitcases of clothes in Bali would make for a lot easier, handy home base to return to whilst traveling than having to hoof it back to Australia every few months.
Settling into the guest rooms at my mother’s house was simple and familiar. I unpacked immediately, showered, and headed straight to bed.
If I’d lingered a bit longer, waited up and chatted for an hour or so, we would have heard the news that I’d arrived only just in time.
Indonesia had announced that in two days, they were joining Australia and the rest of the world by shutting down their own borders. Airports would begin to close, and those foreigners that were in the country needed to leave right away, or risk being stranded a long way from home.
But then, being stranded in paradise didn’t seem that bad to me.
