Booked for Bali

Joan has done all the on-line booking and payment for our Bali trip next month. We are flying with Garuda, the national airline of Indonesia. Garuda doesn't have a great record when it comes to landing on airstrips. They sometimes tend to land on the bits that don't have any tarmac. We have flown with Garuda a few times and I am hoping that their international flight aircraft are serviced better that domestic ones and that their pilots are more experienced than the internal airlines. We thought of flying Qantas, but Garuda does Business return, Perth to Bali for $1310 and Qantas wants $8,024.34 for the same flight. I just hope Garuda maintenance has nailed the wings on with good strong nails. We are booked into a very smart beachside hotel in Sanur for the seven days.

On another flight this week a young family brought Swine Flu to Western Australia. The family of ten...a young couple (the husband is 30), his wife and their 8 children have unwittingly put the entire passenger complement into home isolation until everyone can be tested. The newshounds have gathered outside the home of the infected family which has made the wife a bit cranky and she apparently spat at photographers through a slot in her hijab. A local football team was also on the same flight and players, trainers etc returning from a drubbing in the eastern states is also under scrutiny. I don't suppose they will be required to stay home.

We had a similar experience when we returned to W.A. from six years in Papua New Guinea in 1975. Our son Martin contracted typhoid somewhere, and we were isolated from family and friends for about a month until he got the all clear. We too were hounded regularly for updates on our condition.

Friends of ours; Sean, Denise and their two kids have just returned from a South Pacific cruise and they too are caught up in the Swine Flu epidemic. There was an outbreak of the flu on the ship and all the passengers, some 2000, are required to remain in home isolation with anti-viral drugs for a week. They seem quite happy as they are still smiling from their big adventure.