Advertisement
Kuta Beach
Before the sunbathers arrive!Indonesia consists of approximately 17,000 islands.
Indonesia Map We made it to eight, which isn't bad going.
First stop was the island of Bali, probably the most touristy island of them all. We were craving some beach action after cloudy and humid Hong Kong, so we headed down to Kuta and found a nice place about two minutes walk from the beach. This was our first experience of low prices on our trip and boy was it good! I got a great air-conditioned double room (with TV) to myself for the equivalent of about 8GBP per night. The hotel had a gorgeous swimming pool, its own restaurant, room service, laundry service... it was heaven after the smelly hostels of America and the miniature beds of Japan! And for half the price!
The peak season for Kuta had started, but we were told that it got even busier in late July and August. Nonetheless, there were more than enough tourists there for the place to have a real holiday feel. It made going out at night much more fun than we'd been used to and it was the first time that we could unpack our bags, settle down and start really
Warding off evil spirits
These things are placed almost everywhere in (Hindu) Bali enjoying ourselves. The down side of it being so touristy was that there were hawkers everywhere. It's no exaggeration when I say that you couldn't go more than 30 seconds without being asked to buy something (transport, sunglasses, tshirts, blowpipes, girls, weed, henna tattoos, ice creams, rings, beach mats, massage, hats...).
Kuta Beach has world class surf breaks, so I took the opportunity to learn - my only previous surfing experience being a disappointing day in Cornwall a couple of years back when I put my side out in the beach warmup! This time it was more successful and it wasn't long before I was standing up and riding the smaller waves into the shore. I read somewhere that it takes one hundred hours of practice before you can even call yourself an adequate surfer and I can well believe it. I'd managed to get the hang of a longboard in the small waves, but watching the better surfers ride the tube waves on shortboards, I realised that there was an awful lot more practice to do!
The three of us also used some of our time in Bali to do our PADI training, which was a four
Our beautiful hotel
Pikey backpackers - not us!! day course that qualified us as open water scuba divers. I had my doubts about scuba diving as I'm not keen on the idea of swimming near boats, but I'm glad that I did it as it was a great experience. I'll try to post some of the underwater photos on a later travelblog.
The most memorable moment in Indonesia has to be the night that I spent in an internet shop. NO - not for
that reason; it was the only place that I could follow the Playoff Final! It was a very surreal experience listening to such a massive game on the internet, but it was my only option as nowhere in Bali had a Sky Sports feed (their sports bars are geared up for Aussies). I think I caused a few minor heart attacks when Zamora scored the only goal of the game and I'm sure that when Repka hit the post I introduced some locals to certain Anglo Saxon expressions that they won't have found in their school text books!
Indonesia only grants 30 day tourist visas and we wanted to explore more places, so after two weeks of partying we booked a coach
& ferry trip that took us to Lombok, the island to the east of Bali. Our Lonely Planet guide recommended a beach town called Senggigi, but it was dead when we arrived. We stayed overnight and then got a ride to a port in the north of the island. The port, Bangsal, is a horrible place that swarms with horrible people and when we later heard it referred to as 'the armpit of Indonesia' I had to completely agree. Unbeknown to us, our driver had dropped us off around the corner of the harbour at what I am sure was one of their mate's places. We were charged for 'port fees' and then charged for a very short horse and cart ride to the 'travel agent'. The charges were small, but the idea of being ripped off because you're a tourist really grates. Anyway, the agent told us that we would have to wait there for four and a half hours to get the cheap shuttle boat or we could charter a boat at about fifty times the price. We were frustrated, hot and sweaty and we wanted to get as far away from these scumbags as quickly possible, so
Beach hunks
Pastey white english boys! we paid for the charter boat. We were then told to follow someone to the harbour and when we turned the corner we saw a shuttle boat that was just about to leave. The liars! This guy even had the cheek to tell us that we needed to get on that boat, but we were having none of it after we'd paid for a charter boat. Fortunately for him, he obliged and ushered us to his boat where a guy helped pass our backpacks onto the boat for us. He then got onto our boat and demanded money for his porter services. He didn't get a penny. Oh, and the final pisstake was holding our 'charter' boat back so that a couple of kiwis, who had also paid for their own charter, could be taken with us.
It was nice to finally reach our destination, Gili Trawangan, a very small island off the north-east coast of Lombok. The room we found there was very nice and although most of the beach was washed up coral, the lack of hawkers, beeping cars and the easier way of life than Kuta made for a relaxing and enjoyable few days. The freshly
caught fish meals were also a real highlight.
Unfortunately we were in for another awful journey when we left the Gili Islands. We booked an all-inclusive land/sea ticket from a lovely man on the island that took us back to Lombok, east through Sumbawa and into the island of Flores. The idea was to go to Flores and use it as a base to visit the island of Komodo, home of the Komodo dragons. Our travel agent accompanied us back across the water to Bangsal and guided us through the swarm of racketeers. He came as far as central Lombok, where he booked our coach ticket for us and bade us farewell. Shortly after, the problems started.
Now, I'm conscious of how much I'm moaning, so I'm going to list the events that annoyed us and move on. It's therapeutic to get it off of my chest, you understand!
1. My small bag wasn't loaded onto the coach and I had to pay somebody to go and fetch it for me.
2. We had to wait five hours for the coach to leave, during which time there was an incessant stream of beggars and hawkers walking the
Horse & cart ride
In Gili Trawangan aisle of the coach and hassling us.
3. People posing as coach staff sold us a ticket extension to Komodo that turned out to be a complete scam.
4. We were told by these people that we had to pay a charge for luggage tax but fortunately we smelt a rat and told them to f*** off.
5. Our 'deluxe' coach was far from deluxe and I got about two hours sleep on the overnight leg.
6. We were put into a shoddy and filthy old minibus when we arrived at 5am. The driver switched the engine on and then walked off. He came back a full hour later, by which time we all had our heads hanging out of the window for air as the fumes had become unbearable. He then told us that we needed a different bus and that we would have to change onto a cramped locals bus. Thanks mate.
7. When we finally got to the port where we would get the ferry to our final destination we were told that there were no morning ferries and that the next one was in ten hours. We were then told that it might get cancelled, the
Jakarta Monument
Can't remember what it signifies... following one being the next morning. With the ferry crossing taking ten hours our best case scenario was arriving in Flores at 2am that night, twelve hours after we were told we would arrive when we booked the journey.
We'd understandably had enough by that time and we suspected that the guy at the port would cancel the ferry so that he could get us to spend a night at his mate's guesthouse that he was trying to get us into. Although we thought that we might regret it one day, we decided to give up on getting to Komodo. We screwed up our ferry ticket and got back on the locals bus to where we had come from in order to find a travel agent and get a flight ticket. There were seventeen people on a minibus with nine seats at one point and the girl behind me puked up on the floor (and nobody cleaned it), but I'm not complaining anymore, so I won't go into that!!! The next flight was the following day so we found a place nearby and clock watched from the safety of our room!
The flight was great and we went
More boat travel!
Pleased to be doing it though back to Bali ready to enjoy the last few days of our permitted time in Indonesia, which we did. We flew (once bitten, twice shy!) from Bali to Jakarta and spent an afternoon there before getting an onwards flight into Singapore. Arthur wasn't too well in Jakarta so James and I left him to convalesce while we went out to explore. I won't judge a city of that size based upon one afternoon's experiences, but the parts that I did see weren't overly impressive. The main point of interest was the two girls that came up to me and James while we were waiting to go up the monument. They both had good jobs - they were managers at HSBC, but they seemed SO desperate to meet western men. In fact, desperate is a great way to describe the one that latched on to James as within about five minutes of talking she'd told him that he was handsome over ten times and had pointed out that she wanted a husband, not a boyfriend! As much as we wriggled, we couldn't get out of having our evening together arranged by them without coming across as rude, so we did what
Erm...
I'd guess that they've had more photos taken by their sign than they've had customers! any polite and respectful man would do in this situation. We stood them up.
And that was a summary of our time in Indonesia. I'm starting to realise more and more that I'm not a typical backpacker. I'd rather sit on a toilet than hover over a hole in the floor, I'd rather sit on the beach and ogle than sit outside a hostel and talk for hours about culture, I'd rather wash more than once every few days!
Next blog is Singapore and I'll try not to leave it so long this time.
Chris
Advertisement
Tot: 0.219s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 71; dbt: 0.1005s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Bellsie
non-member comment
Piss Salon
Did you get a short back and sides in the Piss Salon? Tell me you did, just to say you'd had a piss cut. Sounds a dream! xx