Tuesday continued

There is something rather soul destroying about sitting around in airports waiting for a flight. They are incredibly soulless places. We sat in Lombok watching military planes taking off at regular intervals hoping that Indonesia had not declared war on the UK overnight, and waited for our flight to be called . We watched our plane arrive and disengorge it's passengers and load. We were then rushed down some steps and onto the plane and were fortunate enough to see that our cases were in the open hold,always reassuring,  this is quite a small plane and we had to walk up about six steps to get onto it.
We arrived in Bali with no problems and with the ease of experienced travellers hired a porter to take our cases from the domestic airport to the international airport. This of course involved haggling and we settled on 20000 Rupiahs for the task in hand because it was a long walk. This amounted to £1.30 and for this, he lifted our cases off the belt, put them on a trolley, walked us and the cases about half a mile and made sure that we arrived at the correct check in place. All in all it seemed fairly good value for money.
We checked in for our flight to Australia and then had the enormous pleasure of a two and a half hour wait. The airport authorities in Bali have decreed that there should not be enough chairs for all the passengers and so began an enormous game of musical chairs. If you moved, your seat was immediately preyed upon. We were very lucky to get a seat right outside the gate our plane was leaving from and having gathered that occupation of the seat was the major issue,we were not for moving.
Having been through two security checks and x rays of bags, imagine our surprise when we had to face another to get into the boarding lounge when our flight was called. Our surprise was confounded even more when as my bag went through I was told I had a a bottle opener in it. I , of course, denied this. My bag was duly searched and the offending item could not be found. However, they decided to put it back through the scanner again and were insistent that there was one in the bag. It suddenly struck me, with that particular clarity which is granted to idiots , that they were talking about a corkscrew which was in one of my shoes, the offending item was found and was duly confiscated, rather a sad loss really as it was one of my favourites. The master packer had not realised that this was in a shoe when she had packed the rucksack.
Our flight to Perth was operated by Jetstar, a budget airline, although we had booked through Quantas, we decided that this didn't make a huge amount of difference and started looking at the list of refreshments we would have to purchase as both of us were a little hungry. Our first surprise was when a stewardess came and gave us an orange bag each which contained a blanket, a toothbrush, facemask,socks and a neck cushion. No other passengers around us were given anything and we immediately felt that the stigmata had been placed upon us. We had decided to have a sandwich each, when we received a second surprise, as the stewardess came and asked us what hot meal we would like and if we wanted coffee or tea. By this stage the Australians sat all around us had decided that we were very special people and luckily for us were joking about it.
The flight to Perth was good and our entry in Australia was welcoming and quick, there. There were only three foreigners on our plane so immigration was a doddle. The immigration guy was extremely friendly and seemed genuinely interested in us. We were through immigration and customs in no time at all and met up with our good friend, Richard,in the arrivals lounge, it was really good to see him.
Richard drove us back to his house through the quiet streets of Perth, it was really strange to see no motorcycles or scooters and no mad rush at every junction. All in all Perth seemed like a very civilised place with little or no traffic mayhem. We saw the bright lights of the city across the Swan river and met Margaret back at their house it was really good to be with friends.