The Boy and The Coconut Tree

This is going to be a rant and some of you will roll your eyes as I am in Bali, far from the craziness at home and and and. Well the craziness at home is spreading.  Last night I was turned away from check-in because Turkey had decided, a few hours before my flight, to close its borders to people from the UK, even for transit.  Their advice was to request a refund and sit it out. Well thats all fine and dandy but how long will I end up being here?   So my list of offenders (bad customer service are as follows) https://www.turkishairlines.com/ for selling me a ticket for £1100 then telling me to claim a refund rather than re-route me. Opodo for not being contactable at all for 2 days and counting Emirate for hanging up on me after 45 minutes and telling me to wait and see what happens And finally but definitely the worst, Lastminute.com for selling me insurance I can't use, flights I cannot change and not responding to any messages for 3 days an...

Bali is described by many as a paradise. I saw little of that last night as I drove from the airport to my hotel in torrential rain past endless neon signs offering me everything from massagaes, burgers, go go boys and currency exchanges.  My hotel had kept reception open late to let me check in late and that was lovely, they greeted me from my taxi (paid for by them) with a huge umbrella, check in took 5 minutes and they showed me my huge lovely room which opens up to the pool, paradise indeed.   I slept like a baby and no real sign of jetlag (I slept a lot on my two flights getting here) and had a huge breakfast on the terrace (again by the pool) and then headed to the beach. Now Seminyak beach is raved about and sadly it sure seems popular with plastic bags and other bits of rubbish and the hawkers selling everything from sarongs to foot massages.  I topped up my tan as I watched a group of 5 Dutch boys take surfing lessons, they were hilari...