Bali to Flores and back again

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We arrived into Bali quite late in the evening and had arranged to meet with Wiebke and Meike (some of the Goa gang). We caught a taxi to Kuta which is only about 20 minutes from the airport. There was no air con in the taxi so it was the hottest and stickiest ride ever. It was such a treat to arrive and find the girls waiting for us with an ice cold beer each. We found some accommodation and then stayed up all night drinking and catching up. We had a lovely couple of days with the girls although we were really unimpressed with Kuta beach. It was horribly dirty and there was a lot of rubbish floating around your feet in the sea. That would never be allowed in Singapore! Dima did try surfing for the first time though and obviously he loved it. It looked like a lot of hard work to me, I think he only managed to stand up two or three times in as many hours. I much preferred sunbathing and reading on the beach, nice and relaxing!

As soon as the girls left for Australia we got out of Kuta and moved inland to Ubud. For anyone who has been unlucky enough to have read ‘Eat Pray Love’ that is the place the author and protagonist Elizabeth Gilbert finds love. I made the mistake of reading the book in India. I hated it with a passion, but it did make me want to visit Ubud. As a result of the book’s success, the area has become very touristy and expensive in parts, but it is still a really lovely place to visit. It is possible to find really cheap places to stay, eat and drink. Our favourite places to eat were the Warungs which serve up delicious local food for next to nothing. We also managed to find a really cheap spa where Dima got a massage for £3.50 and I got a haircut for £2.50. Bargain!

Ubud was how I imagined Bali to be, lush, colourful and full of culture and tradition. The island is predominately Hindu and they are very religious and superstitious which is why they leave little offerings to the Gods all over the place on a daily basis. There are literally hundreds of these offerings scattered around the streets, their homes and the temples. We really enjoyed wandering around the town and exploring the area. Almost every building looks like a temple of some kind. Even their houses are elaborately decorated and have strange looking stone creatures out the front to scare away bad spirits.

On our second day in Ubud, we decided to hire a scooter and look around the wider area. We planned to drive to a place called Jatiluweh which is a vast area of rice fields. Anyone who tells you Bali is easy to get around is lying. We had a very basic map which was essentially useless and we quickly discovered that road signs are either none existent or totally misleading. We had to resort to stopping at almost every junction and asking the locals for directions. We found it a little unnerving that no matter which direction we came from they always pointed us straight on. It felt like we had been driving round and round in circles but luckily a guy on a scooter told us to follow him because he was going in the same direction. It felt slightly dodgy because he was a total stranger and could easily have led us down a dark alley and robbed us, but it worked out ok and we eventually arrived at Jatiluweh. It was definitely worth the effort, the rice fields stretched on for miles and were stunningly beautiful. They are very well cared for and are so neat and perfect that they don’t quite look real. The drive through the area was amazing, with the bright greens set against the volcanic landscape of Bali. We stopped at a little Warung for lunch and sampled some of the delicious rice.

We continued our journey north and decided to try and make it to the coast stopping at a beautiful temple along the way. As the crow flies the coast was not actually that far away but what we forgot to take into account was how windy the roads are in Bali. It was getting late and we were no where near the coast so we decided to abandon our quest and turned back for home. I had noticed a ‘short cut’ along the way so we turned off when we saw the sign. That was a big mistake and I’m pretty sure the so called short cut took us around the whole of the island before eventually bringing us back to Ubud. It was also one of the bumpiest roads we have ever been on. Once again the locals were happy to help, but still insisted that the correct way was always straight on. Maybe it is a little joke they like to play on clueless tourists! Ninety five miles later (no exaggeration) after a full day on the bike we were tired, hot and suffering quite badly with sore bums. We vowed never to get back on a bike again and so far we have stuck to that promise.

We didn’t have time to recover from our mammoth journey because the next day we were up early to go white water rafting. We had done it before in the north of Thailand but that was nothing compared to this trip which was much longer and included a 4 meter drop towards the end. We shared our boat with a very lazy French couple. They had never been rafting before and they decided to take it easy, leaving all the hard work to us and our guide who became increasingly annoyed with them and their inability to forward paddle. We didn’t really notice because we were just enjoying the experience. The ride along the river was stunning, we were surrounded by jungle and steep cliff faces. Every now and then we would go under a waterfall which was very refreshing after all the extra paddling. We felt like we were trapped in a scene from an Indiana Jones movie. At the end we enjoyed a delicious buffet lunch before heading back to Ubud for one final night.

We had heard great things about the Gili islands so we decided to go and check them out for ourselves. They are three tiny little islands located between Bali and Lombok. We took the painfully slow boat over to Lombok and then took a taxi followed by a long boat over to the largest of the islands, Gili Trawangan (which we nicknamed Big Gili T). When I say the largest, it is actually quite tiny, we walked right around it in about 90 minutes and that was at a very slow pace stopping every now and then to take pictures. The islands are so small that there is no motorised transport and the only way to get around is to walk or take a horse and cart. This means that the islands have a lovely laid back feeling and the minute we arrived we knew we were going to love Big Gili T.

We were met at the boat by a guy offering us accommodation. This had always worked out for us in the past so we followed him. It turned out to be one of our favourite places to stay. The room was basic but clean, we got a free pancake breakfast every day and free tea or coffee any time of the day. The guys that ran it were really friendly, no matter what time of day or night it was, we were always greeted with a friendly “good morning.” We didn’t have the heart to tell them that at 10pm you cant really say “good morning” so we just went along with it and wished them a “good morning” back. The slight down side was that we were positioned right next to the local Mosque and therefore got to listen to the very loud call to prayer which happened five times a day, starting at dawn which was around 5am. There seemed to be 3 main people that did the singing, one man had a lovely voice, one was tone deaf and the other was a little boy who had a very cute voice but occasionally forgot the words. The first few mornings the singing woke me up but eventually I just got used to it and slept right through. It was interesting to see the difference between Bali which is mainly Hindu, and Gili T which is mainly Muslim.

There is very little to do on the Gili islands except swim in the gorgeous blue sea, sunbathe on the perfect white sand, enjoy the delicious fresh sea food and drink the very cheap local alcohol. We were there in the rainy season but most days it was sunny in the morning and then only rained for a few hours in the afternoon so it didn’t spoil our fun. When it rains there are loads of lovely bars to choose from along the beach with big cushions and bean bags to chill out on. We did manage to drag ourselves away from the beach to do a snorkelling trip which was brilliant because we got to swim with a huge sea turtle. Dima also did a dive which according to him was disappointing because he didn’t get to see sharks.

We loved the Gili islands and I could easily have stayed there for weeks but the time had come to move on. Dima had his heart set on making our way over to the island of Flores where you can take a trip to visit the very rare Komodo dragons. There were three options for travel. One was a 3 day boat trip which sounded quite exciting before we realised it was monsoon season and therefore the seas could have been very rough. The second was a one hour flight. The third was a 36 hour bus/boat journey. We foolishly opted for the third option because it was the cheapest. Bad decision. It turned out to be the journey from hell, complete with abusive locals, uncomfortable buses, times of hunger and filthy boats. On the journey back to Bali we opted for the hour flight. Much better.

We only had a couple of days in Flores so we didn’t hang around and decided to charter a boat for the next day to take us over to Rinca which is one of only 3 islands in the world where you can see the Komodo dragons. Once on the island you have to hire a guide to take you around on an hours trek. It would be far too dangerous to just let people wander off unsupervised. Even with the guide and his big stick I didn’t feel entirely safe and was worried that one of the dragons would be lurking in the undergrowth waiting to pounce (or whatever it is they do). Rinca is a good place to see the dragons as you are almost guaranteed a sighting because a group of them gather around the kitchen area every day expecting to be fed. Apparently the rangers used to put on a daily show and feed a live goat or some other poor defenceless animal to the dragons. This cruel practice has now been stopped but the dragons still come to the same spot every day out of habit. We were lucky enough to see two more dragons on our walk, one just walked out in front of us across the path and the other was hiding up a tree. They were both young ones so were much smaller and therefore not quite so scary. The full sized ones that hang around the kitchen are both terrifying and fascinating. They didn’t move very much and were warming up in the sun. It is scary to think that they can run at 13mph, swim and climb trees. They are truly amazing animals and it was well worth the journey to see them.

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