TO BALI OR NOT TO BALI?

Our next destination is Bali, Indonesia, for some r&r for the next 3 days. But yet again, Mother Nature is throwing a wrench in our plans. Mount Agung, an active volcano that has been calm for more than 50 years, has started to rattle and shake again. Mount Agung last erupted from 1963 - 1964. We have been tracking it throughout our circumnavigation of Australia and its rumbles and tremors continue to increase.

Our hotel beautiful hotel, Amankila, is situated 14 miles from Mount Agung. When you look at their website, the first image is of the hotel property with Mount Agung towering above it...a bit too close for comfort.

An eruption is labeled eminent and one of the first initial impacts of the volcano is the closure of Bali Airport. We would be grounded for weeks if not months until the eruptions subsided.

photo courtesy of Amankila

A beautiful image if Mount Agung was dorment but with its heightened activity, this is a bit too close for our comfort. 

This is a real photo from a photogrpaher taking a night shot of Mount Agung and the stars above. Initially perceived as lava flowing down the side it was later revealed that the fire in the image is actually normal crop burn from the villages of Mount Agung.  

Thousands of locals and tourists have been evacuated away from Mount Agung. This image above is the expected lava flow chart and those areas that would affected from the eruption. Our hotel, Amankila, is int he bottom right quadrant just to the left of the green affected area. 

With safety as our main factor, the decision was made to fly to Bali for a technical stop before continuing on to Singapore. We cannot keep the planes and ourselves in Bali knowing that the eruption is eminent. 

As we have seen several times throughout this Journey, our plans and intentions do not always go as expected and we can thank the handlers for this. Upon landing in Bali, our handler indicated that the slots required for our departure out of Bali to Singapore were for 5pm local time.

When asked why this wasn't mentioned to us initially, our handler stated that they were confident they would have been able to obtain earlier slot times and it would be a non-issue but in fact, the earlier slot times were not provided.

I am not launching 6 aircraft, over water, to land at night at Seletar Airport in Singapore, an airport with no approaches.

We are forced to spend the night in Bali; the complete opposite of what we wanted to do. We need a hotel in proximity of the airport for an easy early morning departure. The Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay fits the Air Journey profile and Anais gets rooms for the group.

Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay

An after school community project has young Balinese girls create floral offerings for hotel guests

The runway is in sight of our rooms - pilots on cloud nine.

entrance to our rooms

 our rooms with private lanai and plunge pool

Some locals had the bright idea to set off fireworks nearby. For those of our group who opted for an early night, fireworks sounding in the middle of their sleep, knowing there is an active volcano about to erupt, made them jump out of bed! 

Over night, Mount Agung's warning was raised to orange. She is going to erupt and now its a race against the clock to get out of town....FAST.