Indonesia - Bali and Lombok

---

Selemat Detang!

Spent the flight to Denpasar talking to a lovely lady from Singapore. A former company director who got fed up of the chase and decided to become a Yoga instructor instead. She was en-route to Bali for a two night holiday. I just figured I'd let you all know that slightly pointless story as it seems to sum up Singapore quite well. Thinking about it though; a return flight to Bali is about 50 quid and that is cheaper than a day return on the train from Hereford to London, takes less time too....


Kuta, Bali

Spent two nights in Kuta, Bali. Kuta is the area of Bali where pretty much all holiday makers throw themselves towards - it is rammed full of west coast Aussies (flying here is cheaper and takes less time that going to the east coast) and the 'party crew' of 18 year olds wasting themselves through SE Asia. This mass group of predominently English teenagers use their feeble imagination and decide that Thailand will be an 'adventure' and then on hearing about Vang Vieng slither up there before apparently finishing up in Bali. You can probably tell that I'm not a fan, but they do somewhat spoil the culture of these places.

Kuta is an insanely overcrowded, festering hole. Still feeling like ass I vacated quickly and headed north to Ubud on an overpriced tourist bus (being morons who have no clue of how much things should cost in these countries, they are responsible for massive inflation of all tourist prices).


Ubud

Ahhh, a perfect place to recover in peace. Ubud is basically a collection of villages and a sort-of cultural centre for Bali. As soon as you pull away from Kuta on the bus, the rows of McDonalds and KFC's fade away you are met with acres and acres of rice paddies and the roadside is completely lined with craft shops selling sculptures of every conceivable type the whole way! Most important in Ubud (at least as far as I'm concerned) is the Monkey Sanctuary, pretty much a holy forest full of monkeys and some temples. I stayed about 20 yards from the entrance so wombled my way in almost as soon as I arrived.

Basically I saw a whole lot of monkeys being monkeys. Had to laugh at a moronic 18 year old who had somehow escaped Kuta when he tried to scare a monkey and got bitten for his efforts. Had to side with the monkey really. It's a pretty good example of the average intelligence of these travellers.

Ubud was a fantastic place to do very little in a peaceful environment. Took a mountain bike one day and visited the various temples nearby for some culture, although the religion here seems a bit unusual to me. In Bali most people are Hindu, although it is an Indonesian version of the religion and frankly they make Ganesha (the party God) look scary! With the exception of offerings left outside of every entranceway, I didn't notice anywhere near the power of the religion in India.


After 4 nights in Ubud I headed off to Padangbai to catch the ferry across to Lombok en-route to the Gili Islands. Bumped into Irish Ciaran from Nepal and Malaysia travelling fame in Padangbai and so set off on this fairly manky journey.

The point in buying transport tickets from an agency in generally to simplify things. Once you've been travelling a while you only do it if you're feeling very lazy or local transport is just too complicated. I was feeling very lazy, but unfortunately things in Bali don't go as they should.

Left my hotel at 6.30am to hike up to the place where I got my ticket as they refused to give me a hotel pick-up, after 30 minutes of driving around picking up other people from their hotels and driving past mine in the process I was fairly pissed already. Made it to the port in Padangbai and joined the other 200 odd tourists in waiting for the staff to decide who was going where. There were actually only 2 options, fast boat or slow boat, but this proved to be very complicated for the 7-8 different people trying to sort it out who repeatedly asked to see tickets, annoying everyone in the process.

Eventually they knew what was happening and whilst marching to the ferry we simply had to tell several 'money exchange' people to sod off.

I had been a bit drunk the previous night and so the 5 hour sweat-fest ferry journey wasn't the most fun - I personally slept on the floor for about half of it. Arrived at Lembar, Lombok after only 3 hours 30 which seemed freaking awesome, however we were then made to wait another hour 30 whilst the people in the port made some space to fit in this daily regular ferry. This allowed a small army of little boats to rock up to the ferry and unload a slightly bigger army of hawkers selling endless food and junk.

From here we had to fight to sort a minibus out which took us to Mataram (the capital) before we stopped to have a 3rd different ticket of the journey issued. Here the agency plied us with honest comments about how when you arrive at the next port you shouldn't listen to the locals or pay anything extra - this was their theatrical performance to earn trust and get everyone signed up for a return ticket back from the Gilis. We were informed that 'You cannot get a return once you're there!'. Obviously being a load of steaming dung me and Ciaran refused to buy the return and I managed to upset a guy in the process of refusing.

After another bus ride and a random drop off about a km away from the port we wombled around some more and found the tiny boats which they shoved everyone into somehow and reached the island under the cover of darkness. Was a full 12 hour day journey, actual travelling time probably should've been about 6.


Gili Trawangan

Ciaran was off to Australia in a couple of weeks and myself the week after that and so this was basically the final party before normal life. The island is touted as being a 'backpacker paradise' and whilst a paradise it has most definitely changed a huge amount since that was quote was first concieved.

It's a strange place really, very hard to get to and doesn't have the most fantastic beaches in the world (big volcanic sands), but it has obviously grown a lot recently. Expensive designed restaurants are the norm - not the usual backpacker 'shacks' pieced together with whatever could be found. Thanks to this we spent almost all of our eating time in one of the few remaining local restaurants. Even more bizarre on the island was the massive stage set up purely to celebrate the islands getting wi-fi. Very strange place indeed.

We found ourselves a sweet guesthouse complete with TV and a DVD player for a bargain price. As I said previously, we were here for fun and so basically with the exception of some snorkeling and climbing the hill in the centre of the island for sunset, we spent our time taking advantage of the fact that the island doesn't yet have any police, therefore allowing us to spend plenty of time drinking and consuming a little too much happy smoke.

Topped this off by going out to Judy's Bar and drinking my first mushroom shake with the others. Under the crazy flashing lights of the nightclub my brain was fairly trashed and I returned to our veranda to ride out the trip. Psychedelic colours are pretty fun and talking to imaginary people (even though you know you're tripping and they're not actually there) was definitely good times. Was still riding it out when Ciaran came back after getting pathetically lost.


Kuta Lombok

Eventually the time came after a week, to move on. Of course at this stage we hadn't brought the all important return ticket, how would we ever get back?! We got the public ferry by walking to the dock and asking for a ticket (not so tricky!) and set off before the tour company folk. On the other side we took a Cemero (horse drawn cart) a few kilometres down the road to where the local local transport should pick people up (the infamous bemos). At this point a tour agent became far too desperate to miss out on business and made us a 'secret price' of 50k each and we took the bus with the rest of the tourist folk to Kuta Lombok. Normal ticket price 160,000, our price 10,000 ferry 5000 horse and 75,000 minibus. Now that's a sweet saving!

In terms of atmosphere Kuta Lombok couldn't be any further away from its bloated cousin in Bali. This is the real surfers paradise. Endless 'secret' beaches with huge waves, stunning sands and almost no nightlife at all. The no nightlife factor is entirely down to the fact that it isn't needed. The real surfers go to bed early, get up at 5am for the morning swell, come back for lunch and then head back out for sunset surf.

We hired mopeds and headed off to one of the beaches several km away and hired boards - time to have my first go at surfing. On advice from a self-confessed amateur from NZ, we headed out in a boat to Dum Dum's. He told us the waves were small today because 'the swell wasn't arriving until tomorrow'.

The waves were about 7 feet high and had more power than an electric bear.

Jumping out of the boat you pretty much get on the board which is tied to your ankle and paddle out. When you're a complete noob in giant waves you figure it's best to stay out of the main waves and lurk about to watch for a while. Inevitably at some point the waves decide to play a trick and sent out a super-monster which somehow stretches all the way sideways and completely wipes you out anyway, dragging you for a few hundred metres underwater. As I said - supermonster! I'd guess the first thing you'd be taught if you're wise enough to have lessons is how to bail so this wouldn't happen. As soon as you learn how to avoid being carried by the wave, you don't have to get completely shagged out trying to swim all the way back out on your board, all the time trying not to get your ass kicked by several more waves.

Unfortunately not having these lessons I took a massive whack from my board resulting in a bruise which stretched from halfway up the inside of my upper left arm to halfway down the lower part. Wipeout and fail.

Went back to shore after a couple of hours completely knackered. Ciaran had surfed a few times before but in these huge waves we were both basically useless, me even more so.

Second time out surfing the swell was much kinder (although this time we were actually told that it probably wasn't overly advisable) so we headed out to the same spot. I caught my first wave, this meaning I paddled with it and caught the top of it and basically body boarded it for a couple of hundred metres. This was a mistake again, if only because I stayed on for far too long and had to suffer the the epic paddling all the way back again and getting a much heftier board-rash. Finally caught my first wave standing and once again stayed on the board far far too long, ended up a few hundred metres away, but feck it - I was surfing my first wave!!! Major adrenaline rush and all of a sudden surfing seems incredibly addictive.

Failed to catch anything else that day though...

3rd and final time out I was in the process of standing up, until someone kindly surfed into my board, but managed to surf a couple more later on, I even managed my first attempt at steering the board. The final one of the day was after the sun had set and my last attempt of the day. Good times.

Surfing at sunset is officially cool.

One day here, I took a monster motorbike trip to the nearest town (and more importantly nearest ATM) about 40 minutes away. We also went majorly off road on another lengthy trip to find a 'legendary' surfing beach, although we did this purely to see the beach and waves. No chance in hell we'd survive trying to surf there. Lots of haggling for sarongs, scarfs and tshirts and plenty of eating fruit from hawkers.

After 5 days we had to make a move back towards Bali - Ciaran needed to get sorted before Oz and I needed to get moving towards Bali. We decided once again that tourist buses cost far too much so we planned to go the public transport route.

We knew the first Bemo (a pick-up with benches in the back and a roof) should cost about 5000 and we knew that the drivers are c**ks when it comes to charging tourists the correct prices. The first asked for 100,000. We laughed in his face (deservedly) and told him we'd pay 10,000. After much 'negotiation' and some help from a local this is what we payed and we were off! Good fun riding in the Bemos, the locals carry everything and anything inside. At one point there were about 15 schoolkids hanging off the thing and another time I gagged at the smell of miscellaneous chicken bits in a basket. We made it to Praya in decent time and sorted another Bemo to Sengkol for 10,000.

The big downfall of the Bemo is that it leaves when full. We were delayed here for close to an hour and were passed the time eating PoP Me's, Indo's equivalent of the Pot Noodle. The third bemo was also 10,000 and dropped us off just in time for the ferry back to Bali. Other side we got a taxi for the same pric as the tourist shuttle and raced back to Kuta, Bali. The race wasn't totally successful, our driver was psychotic at the very least and kindly crashed into the back on a 4x4. Fortunately he hit the spare wheel on the back, so on inspection there was no harm done. I was recorded his driving at the time so I actually have a video of the crash! Tourist price for the day 200,000 - we paid 113,000 and more importantly, despite the crash we made it back to Kuta before the shuttle coaches which meant we were able to find a room!


Kuta Bali

Had a slightly odd night here, went to watch the British Grand Prix (pathetic showing guys) which we found in a bar that sold cheap beer. This ruined the 'couple of drinks' idea and ended up with us in a club dancing the YMCA with a bunch of South Korean travel agents. South Koreans rock, that's yet another thing that's official.

Left Ciaran a couple of days later whilst he was trying on his new suit and preparing to fly that evening and headed off towards Java for the final leg of my Asian Adventure. It's fair to say neither Ciaran or myself had many enthusiastic things to say on the prospect of Australia. It's nothing against the country of course, it's just that the prospect of working and staying in one place is nto something either of us are used to anymore!

Will attempt to write about Java tomorrow sometime, in Jakarta now. Fly out to Singapore tomorrow night and then to Sydney the following one. Sob!

Selemat Jalang!

---

Photos

The Monkees
Monkeys larking about in Ubud, Bali

The Waddlers
Ducks wandering the rice paddies of Ubud, Bali

The Hagglers
Ciaran haggling over sarongs for fun

My Four Dollar Delight
Not in the Lonely Planet of course. About 20 metres from the Monkey Forest.