Bali travel with my kid
When I became pregnant, I was repeatedly told that my "traveling habits" will have to change, aka that I won't be able to do it anymore. It hurt me deeply, mostly because it came from other parents who had not taken their kids outside the borders of the country. It hurt me because I believed them and I thought that my traveling days were over. When my daughter was 9 months old, we decided to take her to the seaside, without leaving the country. There is a national obsession with children getting sick at the seaside (partly justified, because many restaurants still lack basic hygiene). We went, and nothing happened. We went 2 years after that, and still, my child didn't get sick. We took her out of the country (by car) at three and she first flew before her fourth birthday. She flies a couple of times a year, loves planes and hotels, is a good sleeper and seldom is sick. And, also, we can reason with her, no matter how tired she is.
Neither I or my husband had flown more than 3 hours previous to the flight to Bali. So, naturally, I was a little worried. A year before, a friend of mine, who has 2 kids younger than my daughter flew to the Maldives and posted about how easy the flight had been. That gave me courage. But still, the prospect of a 13-hour flight seemed a bit daunting. Also, some recent analysis revealed that I have some digestive problems (new-discovered lactose intolerance), so traveling to Asia became even more problematic. We (together with our friends - I don't think that I would have dared to do this just with my family) chose to fly with Turkish airlines because we thought the short periods between the two flights would be an advantage.
So we drove to the airport (4 hours away), parked the car and waited for the plane. We boarded, the plane toured the runway for a couple of times (my daughter was already watching cartoons) and then we were told that we had to leave the plane, due to "technical problems" (we later found out that one of the two engines had failed to start). We waited in the airport for 4 hours, in the night, in a never-ending line. Finally, we solved the problem by phone, delayed our departure and arrival by two days and got a hotel room, because my kid couldn't sleep very well in the airport chairs. Two days later, we went to the airport, boarded the plane with a one-hour delay and, just before take-off, we realized that there was a very slim chance to catch the Denpasar connecting flight from Istanbul. I wanted to get off the plane and return home, but all I could think about were the promised jungle, temples, and ocean of Bali. When we arrived in Istanbul, the Denpasar plane was supposed to have departed. Anyway, after a ten-minute crazy run through Europe's newest and largest airport (at 2 a.m), we finally boarded the Bali plane. Out of the five people on the trip, only my daughter still believed that we could get there.
We flew for 11 hours to Denpasar and for 12 hours and a half on the way back. I slept for 8 hours on the first flight and 9 hours on the second. My daughter slept more. As she could stretch over the parent sitting next to her, it was comfortable for her. I can't say that it was the best sleep I had, but it was not the worst. Overall, it was better than I had expected. During the 11 days we spend there neither I nor my daughter had any digestive problems. We didn't stay in a resort, we visited everything we could and we ate local food.
So, to all the nay-Sayers and "attentive folk" who tried to warn me and tell me that I would never travel again after I have a kid, I flew to Bali for 12 hours with a 6-year old and I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I probably will, because we liked it too much.
