Advertisement
Published: March 27th 2007
2007-02-14 14-40-10
Balinese are not Muslims, they are Hindus. Their arts are quite explicit. Indonesia was not on our original plan as a place to visit. Due to the riots against the Chinese in the late 1990's and due to the warnings in the guidebooks, we did not want to take a lot of risk.
While in Burma (in December 2006), we met Soninha from France and she highly recommended Indonesia. So, we decided to spend three weeks in Bali, but avoid Java.
We got discounts flights tickets off Air Asia's website, to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia.
On Feb 13, we took a local bus from near our hostel in Kuala Lumpur and reached KL Sentral. From KL Sentral, we took the airport bus (RM$9) to get to LCCT terminal (Low Cost Terminal) of the KL airport (KLIA). The airport bus ride took about 1 hour.
We fly to Denpasar of Bali. We reached Denpasar at around 7 pm.
We took a taxi from the airport to go to Kuta. It costs us US$5 to go approximately 3 km. What a rip off. The taxi did not even drop us off at a guesthouse that we want to go to.
Just off the airport road
2007-02-15 09-29-40
One of the many entrances to the public beach in Kuta. and all the way to Kuta beach, there are guesthouses, stores, travel agents and restaurants all lining the main road.
We found a guesthouse off Poppies Lane 1, after having been turned away a few times because the guesthouses were full. The guesthouse costs US$5.5, with fan only (i.e. no air-conditioning).
The next morning, we found MacDonalds and had fried chicken and rice there, the first time we had rice in a MacDonalds.
Kuta beach is a surfing beach. There are many surfers. It is not a good beach for just swimming.
On the evening of Feb 14 (Valentine's day), there were many young couples (most Indonesians) at the beach. They partied all night.
The guidebook says that we will need an International Drivers License to operate an automobile/motorcycle. And the Indonesians are pretty strict about it. Since Gary did not get his IDL this time (he did last year), the alternative is to get a temporary license.
In Kuta, we asked around at the police stations. We learned we will need to go to Denpasar to get it. An officer did offer to provide Gary with a "recommendation" for him to operator
2007-02-15 09-30-43
The beach in Kuta is famous for surfing. a motorcycle for about US$12, but the recommendation will only be good for two weeks.
We politely declined and the next day we took a local mini-bus (bemo) to Denpasar which is about 10 km away. After bargaining, we paid US 50 cents each for the mini-bus. We walked around town and visited the police depot and learned that the police station that issued temporary drivers license is another 5 km away. We also learned that the license costs US$40 with a one-month validity. We figured that it is not worth the effort and the money and so we decided to look for the company that run boat trips throughout Indonesia.
We were checking out whether if there is a boat that goes to Labuan Bajo, which is near the Komoda Island, where Komoda dragons live. The boat will operate once every two weeks and the cheapest fare will provide deck space (i.e. no seats).
We found Kuta to be too busy for us.
After talking to some other tourists, we decided to go to Gili Air island (see next entry) and forget about Sengigi and Candi Dasa.
We bought a combo transport ticket from
2007-02-15 10-10-37
The main street in Kuta is very busy most of the time. Denpasar to Gili Air. We also exchanged some money as we realized the street exchange rates are better than the ATM's.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.246s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 16; qc: 71; dbt: 0.1651s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
