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Published: November 30th 2008
After the coldest plane ride ever, we touched down in Bali. We haggled with a few cab drivers, found the one who ripped us off the least and went to Kuta. Kuta was the scene of two different bombings (2002 and 2005) by Islamic terrorists. If you have ever been to Huntington Beach, CA just imagine it in Bali. If you want Hard Rock Café, KFC, Starbucks, McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, Circle K, Versace, you get them all here. Needless to say, we were surprised again! I didn’t expect naked islanders, but I didn’t expect this either.
So far the rooms have been a little pricier than we expected (at least breakfast is included), but the food and beer is cheap. Lunch is under $5, dinner about $6 and beers for .75 cents (this is for both of us). Small bottled water costs about 50 cents for two and you get a pizza for $29,000 rupiah ($2.90). It’s still quite a novelty to hit the ATM and withdraw $1 million rupiah (about $100 US).
We started with the beaches from Kuta to Legian. The beaches in this area are not white sand beaches like you might expect, but rather black sand
beaches from volcanoes. Surfing rules the scene here, with surfers from everywhere, but it’s still the locals who rule the waves. The waves are pretty big and don’t disappoint. We’ve not tried surfing yet, since I’ve not been on a board since I was maybe nineteen (like 10 years ago) and Ruthie can’t see past her hands without her glasses.
From the well known beaches, we headed north through the highlands and rice fields over to Lovina on the north coast. This is a town the tourists have deserted. It’s the off season here, but it is way too quiet. After a couple of days we moved on to Tulamben, a one horse town where someone stole the horse. After that we hitched a ride in the back of a pick-up with a bunch of locals to a village named Amed.
We passed a good time in Amed, snorkeling off the beach seeing some really nice corals and lots of fish. Ruthie can now call out all kinds of fish and is getting good at spotting them in their hiding places. Next came Padangbai an overnight stop, which was supposed to be our gateway east to Lombok and
Komodo Female
Close as I dared to getthe Gili Islands, but after some warnings by the local police and the fact that our boat broke down, we decided not to push fate (the Islamic terrorists who did the bombings were executed that day and people were demonstrating in the streets ).
Instead we hired a fishing boat, a jukung (think hollowed out tree with outriggers attached to both sides) to Nusa Lembongan. After about 30 minutes the captain, smiling his toothless grin, motioned for me to start bailing. Some 60 minutes later and five more times bailing, we arrived on the beach, both our backpacks and us soaked to the gills. We spent a few days here, renting a moto and exploring the island, which took maybe 2 hours. We took a larger junking for this trip across the Badung Straits to Sanur, no bailing this time. Sanur is nice place where an AARP card is in everyone’s wallet. Try not to imagine your parents in swimsuits, but that’s what you get.
We arranged a trip to Flores from here and headed to Labaun Bajo where we boarded our awaiting yacht for a 3D/2N trip to Komodo National Park on Rinca Island. Our yacht turned
Komodo Dragon Trophies
They kill water buffaloes deer and horses out to be a fishing boat; no deluxe cabin, no privacy, and certainly no “love boat” with three crew members sleeping at our feet. There was one over the water squat toilet and two mattresses on the deck for our bunk. We set sail (motored actually) for Rinca Island to see the Komodo Dragons. Within about 5 minutes after getting to the island we saw our first group of dragons. They were incredible! They grow to about 2 meters in length (6 ft), weigh around 90 kilos (200 lbs) and live for 30 or so years, all 1200 of them. They take down deer and water buffalo every other week for food. They take a bite of their prey, somehow spit a poisonous brew of bacteria laden saliva and wait for them to get sick. When the prey weakens, the dragons attack and devour the animal. We trekked around Rinca for a couple of hours seeing dragons everywhere, the females were nesting and this was a bonus. We were able to see deer, macaque monkeys, and birds while trekking. We anchored overnight at Flying Fox Island where we were able to watch bats the size of foxes (get the name?)
Bali Chick
She just doused us with holy water for good luck take off for the mainland in search of fruit. Tens of thousands of these huge bats took off all evening and returned the next morning screeching with full bellies. After another day of boating, snorkeling, and camping out we made it back to the main island for the next leg. We are doing an overland crossing of Flores for the next week.
We caught a travel car (minibus) to Ruteng (4hrs) where we were not able to find a single hotel room in the entire town leaving us with the only option of catching the next bus to Bajawa (4.5 hrs), arriving at 9 pm. As usual the bus is a 12 seater and they sell 15 tickets, so they cram everyone in and head off like a flying fox bat out of hell, playing the latest Indonesian religious/country western/love music at about 100 decibels with blown out speakers, with half the locals chain smoking and the other half hanging out the windows puking their guts out because they are car sick. The roads here are indescribable, it’s like you give a three year old a crayon and let him draw anything he wants, no straight lines, switchbacks, up-hills
and down-hills at impossible angles, washouts, potholes, landslides, no safety rails to stop you from plummeting to your death, people walking in the road, people eating in the road, cars, trucks, and motos parked in the road, all with everyone sharing the single lane road. Oh yeah, of course at night no one likes to use their headlights, because they want to save them but they blow the hell out of their car horns to let someone else know that they are there.
We stayed in Bajawa for a couple of days with plans to see some traditional villages, but got caught in some heavy rain storms and decided to skip them instead. From here we went to Ende with plans to see a series of multicolored lakes, but that was much more difficult than we imagined. The lakes were only about 1 hour away and on the way to our next destination, but it was impossible to find out how to get a ride there. After an hour in the Official Office of Indonesian Tourism Information Conservation Cultural Ministry Department and Bureau of Unwed Mothers meeting with five officials, they decided it could only be done if we
hired a cousin of one of the officials for $65, we would start at 5am and end at 5pm, all to go less than 150 miles. Well we didn’t do that. After a couple hours of searching we found a shared car (someone going that way picking up people to pay for gas) and it cost $7.
We left Ende with a nun, a rock star, a young girl, and two chain smoking idiots. For some reason, the driver let the rock star practice his driving skills for about the first 36 miles; it took us 1:15 to get that far. We stopped once for the guys to eat and to let the nun pray, the girl puked the entire way. After a week of really crappy rooms and crappy food we arrived in Maumere, our final destination on Flores, and booked the best room in town for $25. We have an ocean view, a western toilet instead of a squat one, a real shower versus a bucket bath and air con (it’s about 95 degrees here). After a mix-up in whether we actually had valid airline tickets or not we departed the island of Flores. Flores is one
Komodo Dragon
Female sitting on her nest of those places we never have to visit again. Going to see the Komodo Dragons is the only reason to visit, do that then leave. The landscape is not very pretty; it’s brown, dry and dusty, it’s like a mountain desert. The people are not very friendly and quite disgusting. The female airline ticket agent had a finger knuckle deep in her nose and spit constantly while checking our flight status, everyone constantly clears their throat and spits (men and women), snot rockets are common, and the men constantly rub their crotch like their genitals are irritated (not in a sexual manner). Just something westerners are not accustomed to seeing day in and day out. Well, back to Bali now.
Arriving back in Bali we went back to the travel agent who booked our “private yacht” and made a complaint. She said if we didn’t like it, to go the police, so we did. The police told her to come down to the station and defend herself. She told us she would rather go to jail than pay us back, so we said “Okay that’s fine, if you go to jail you don’t have to pay us back”. She
gave us a refund and we went on our way. We are still amazed we got a refund in Indonesia. Next up is the mountain town of Ubud.
Ubud is the cultural capital of Bali. It is known for its arts and crafts. Art galleries are everywhere and everyone is an artist. Tons of shops, cafes, boutiques, and swank resorts are on every street. As usual we start our trekking and see what the area is like. Averaging about 10 kilometers a day, for the past several days, we explore the surrounding country side to see the local villages and enjoy the varied landscape. It’s a little hilly up here, with a river or two running through the area with plenty of rice paddies and elephant grass added in for scenery. The temps are hot during the day but it cools down nicely during the night.
We’ve had a nice week here in Ubud. It’s been one of the highlights of Bali. We even had Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, almost as good as yours Mom. We never found what we expected of Bali, maybe that was our fault. If you are looking for white sand beaches,
try Destin, Florida. If it’s the jungle, try Borneo. If it’s shopping, you’ll love Bali. The people are nice enough, but they are not satisfied with just one sale, they just keep on and on and it gets a little tiring. We have a couple of more weeks left on our visa but we decided it’s time to move on.
As I sit here typing this up, we are being treated to a unique cultural experience having a large group of local musicians practicing for one of their dance and music performances. The place we are staying is owned by a family who makes musical instruments. I’m sure a lot of people would kill to be a part of this, but to us it sounds like wind chimes on steroids. Imagine thousands of different wind chimes, gongs, xylophones, bells and drums all being played at one time with no rhythm or melody, just everybody playing their own thing, VERY loud.
We leave Bali with a layover in Kuala Lumpur, and then it’s off to Manila in the Philippines. Last time I was in the P.I. was almost 20 years ago. Bob Andrews and I were still in the
Navy; somehow I don’t think Ruthie and I will visit the same sights.
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