Day 1: Travel Day - Tāmaki Makaurau to Singapore
Nau mai
Yesterday we traveled from Auckland to Singapore.
If there was one gift, one priceless skill I received from my time with the 59th Special Forcé Battalionette it was the ability to sleep anywhere. Anytime. Lying down, sitting, standing, crouching, walking - any pace up to a slow jog and I could still turn the lights straight out. Even after a full night of perfect slumber I could close my eyes and rest for another eighteen hours if I needed it for the mission.
This tour began like any other, a cold winter morning, a light drizzle falling, loading our gear into the angular trailer of a Super Shuttle as Karangahape Road was just beginning to stir into life. I had packed light, as I always did. I knew the road would provide anything I needed. Just my toothbrush in my left pants pocket and the clothes I was wearing. I would bin these and buy a new outfit when it was time to change.
The sun was rising as we drove the motorway out to the airport. The Mainfreight messageboard proclaimed its daily addage: Imagination is more important than knowledge. Six extremely wise words. It was a good omen.
The first tour breakfast was had in the Air New Zealand Koru Lounge and it featured all the classic components of this never changing buffet. Potato medallions, cheese kranskys with mustard, toasted english muffins, scrambled eggs, and baked beans were squeezed onto the tight confines of the portion controlling plate.
It was a daytime flight and for a change I could spend the entire nine hours enjoying beautiful views of the red desert from my window as we flew most of the breadth of Australia.
We touched down in Denpasar with a nerve-wracking flurry of rapid rudder corrections but then rolled out smoothly and taxied to the terminal. The thick, hot air struggled through the cracks around the air bridge as we disembarked. An airport employee was waiting to guide us to our connecting flight. First we had to wait for our luggage to come out so we could pass through customs and then recheck everything on a domestic flight. It took ninety minutes for our equipment to emerge, and this was where things began to fall apart. We stood around tapping our watches with other passengers from our flight waiting for their surfboards and strollers.
Finally a trolley emerged with some of our cases. This was a one man operation. Ten minutes later it returned with more cases. Then one final load arrived and we were free, heading with our escort into customs so we could operate the carnet. Things began to unravel further. We had a problem with our document and Jon was enmeshed in a deep negotiation with a team of four customs officers trying to get us admitted into the country. Precious minutes elapsed and we missed our connecting flight. Tristan left and went to the airline desk to see if we could re-book on a later flight. We were all tired by this point. Noone had investigated the timezone but it felt like bedtime +3. Liz, Gabe, and I stood in the customs area with our big pile of equipment and slept standing up while we waited for a resolution.
There were no seats available on the later Jakarta flight but Tristan worked hard in his phone call to Air New Zealand and booked us on the next flight to Singapore with a connection to Jakarta in the morning. It was good to be moving again. We left customs and pushed our equipment through the airport, completing an arduous 90 minute check in for our Singapore Airlines flight and smashing back a quick dinner before boarding our flight. It was beginning to feel like a very long day. Bedtime +6, if I had to score it.
It was a two hour flight to Singapore and I slept viciously, grasping every precious minute of rest as our aircraft flew across the Java Sea. The slight bump of wheels caressing the runway woke me but I forced myself back to sleep for another ten minutes as we completed a lengthy taxi to the terminal.
It was just after midnight local time as we disembarked into Changi Airport’s Terminal 2. The bedtime plus system was becoming useless at this point as we all drifted further from the comforting orbit of our body clocks. At 7am we would be able to catch our flight to Jakarta. Luckily we were in the best airport in the world to spend for an overnight connection. The KrisFlyer Gold Lounge was our haven, a 24 hour lounge that had showers, hot food, and quiet corners to rest. A wash and a change of clothes did wonders for our spirits and then we settled down, each finding ourselves a bench seat to grab a few hours sleep before our final connection.
Luckily I remembered to grab this candid selfie right before I fell asleep.
A discussion recently occurred between the members of the band in which we reminisced about the old days of touring when you could still earn points and become Beth of the Day. We were better people back then, back when a points-based incentive system and fear of public shame would keep us on our toes and inspire kindness and creativity.
Beth of the World is a new competition designed to get us back to that place. The scoring system is simple:
A member of the tour party may award another member of the tour party a point for good conduct or any other kind or honourable act performed while on tour.
A member of the tour party may detract a point from another member of the tour party for dishonourable behaviour.
On this first day of the tour I would like to award Jon a point for his grueling negotiation with the customs office.
I would also like to award Tristan a point for organising our new flight and ensuring that we didn’t spend the night at Denpassar Airport.
You can check the Beth of the World standings at the new link at the top of the page (in the drop down menu on mobile devices).