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We just got back from Bali. Which is very far away. We had a ten hour layover in Doha, of all places, on the way over and 12.5 hour layover on the way back. (Qatar Airlines, by the way, is So. Much. Better than United, needless to say.) I'm slap-happy jet-lagged.

I have a lot to say. I will break it into multiple posts.

Notes on Doha

We had a ten hour layover in Doha on the way to Bali and a twelve hour one on the way back. Oof.

The airline combined with the tourism board has a $20 city tour if you have a layover of more than 5 hours. So we did that on the way out. It’s solid propaganda, as one might expect. Interesting, though. Chuckro has a more thorough write-up. Mostly, it was a series of brief photo ops. (Note – the architecture is really gorgeous. The skyscrapers are kind of ridiculous, but I love the interiors of Islamic architecture.) The one part I was really looking forward to was the souq…but we were there on a Friday morning and it was basically closed. Which was disappointing. On the other hand, it was 97 degrees and felt like 114 and it was miserable to be outside for any length of time. (Every time we got off the air conditioned bus, we'd make these little involuntarily "oof" noises like someone had gently punched us in the stomach.) I figured we’d try again on the way back.

Well, on the way back, it was 107. And probably felt like 120-something. And we were tired. The real problem, though, was that with the various date line changes I’d missed that we were passing through once again on a Friday. So the souq was again closed. With the thing I’d mostly wanted to see unavailable, the idea of venturing out to go to an art museum or something was just…not super appealing. So we stayed in the airport. For 12 very disorienting hours. (We did get probably a solid four hour nap in one of the quiet rooms.) I bought some trinkets in the gift shops. I tried Arabic coffee, which is heavily flavored with cardamom and served with dates and I liked quite a bit. I’m mostly disappointed not to get a couple pictures of things not closed and to not actually have any of the local cuisine. (The food in the airport is disappointingly Western and also airport food.) Ah well.

Notes on Bali

From a geographic perspective, last year’s trip to Iceland was the weirdest place I’d ever been. From a sociological perspective, Bali I think is the most foreign I’ve encountered.

( So many details )

Things we did in Bali

Chuckro is doing his own big write-up, but here’s my list, partially so I don’t forget:

( There's a lot of stuff here, don't say I didn't warn you )