52) Our mid-trip crisis in Bali

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The plane from Macau departed on time, the only drawback was the low temperature - the AC in the plane was running at full speed and we were freezing and no blankets were available on this flight. Chilled to the bones we arrived in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, where we were immediately granted a free visa for 90 days, finally a country without complicated visa formalities, thank God. We did not leave Kuala Lumpur’s modern and interesting airport but strove to get some sleep there, which was close to impossible due to the reigning cold. Asian societies should rethink their exaggerated use of air condition, this would considerably help save precious energy in a petrol-strapped world. Anyway we had to endure it on the airport as well as the following ice cold Air Asia flight from Kuala Lumpur to Denpasar, Bali’s capital.

Welcome to Indonesia, the unlikely country, divided between over 13,000 islands, hundreds of languages and cultures, several time zones and spread over an expanse of sea linking Asia with Australasia. We had chosen Bali as our gateway to Indonesia because we were counting on it offering all modern facilities like internet paired with fascinating cultural sites and gorgeous beaches. The weather also played an important role in our choice, monsoon in Indonesia started only in October and temperatures were in a pleasant range in this season, we also intended to head north from there, up to Thailand and to Indochina subsequently. We had decided to avoid the bustling city of Kuta and instead opted for the quieter city of Sanur. Still without a guidebook, we had only studied several of them in Hong Kong and chosen a guesthouse with the funny name Watering Hole. Should we not like it, we could change places very easily as accommodation is abundant in Sanur. At the airport there was no scarcity of transport and we chose a taxi, the price of which did not appear largely overpriced to us (we would quickly have to learn about the ‘real’ prices). As we only knew the name of the guesthouse but neither its address nor telephone number and the taxi driver himself did not know the place, he phoned around until he had eventually found out. Hats off, these guys really know what service is all about! Watering Hole turned out to be one of the few budget accommodations among the largely mid- to high-range hotels. The house was very nice with an open two-storeyed front where only the rooms had doors, abundantly decorated with Balinese handicraft and hung with several cages of singing birds. The room was nice though it did not have hot water, but it cost only RP 80,000 (ca. EUR 6), and the restaurant was cheap and served tasty meals. As Hong Kong had not been the ideal place to update our travelblog, a huge workload was before us in order not to lag behind too far. So one of the first things we tried to discover were internet cafes. This was not an easy task without a guidebook but we could not find a bookshop in Sanur. In the end we found a limited number of internet cafes but they were definitely too expensive and too few to trigger competition. It was clearly sensible that Sanur’s clientele consisted mainly of middle-aged participants in package tours, who could easily survive 2-3 weeks without surfing the web. So we looked for another pastime and quickly discovered the recently finished shore promenade and paid a visit to the Le Mayeur Museum at its start. This small museum is situated in the house of a Belgian painter who had come to Bali in the 1930s, one among a large community of artists at that time. He later on married his favourite Balinese model and decorated his beautiful Balinese house with unusual handicraft, like painted and carved shutters, doors, wardrobes and other wooden objects. These and the paintings which were especially dear to the painter and had therefore not been sold, are to be admired in the house. Although it was officially closed, we were allowed to step in and enjoyed our visit a lot. We would have loved to swim, but to our big disappointment we soon found out that the sea was rather treacherous, full of strong undercurrents and due to its waves more apt for surfing than for swimming. We did swim once, but it was not a pleasure and as Sanur was too posh a place for us, after only two nights we beat our retreat and moved to Kuta.

Well, we had come to Kuta at the south end of Bali, although we quite disliked the place when we had driven there from Sanur. But on the other hand we found many internet cafes at much more competitive prices (between EUR 0.75 and 1.5 per hour) than in Sanur. Considering the amount of hours we would spend in front of the computer, the difference in price mattered a lot. Bali is a highly developed island, with good roads, plenty of transport, accommodation, shops and all imaginable facilities. But who thinks of Bali these days thinks less of bars, beaches and shopping but rather of the Bali bombing that occurred in 2002. Although tourists are slowly coming back and tourism is catching up again, their number is still highly inferior to previous years and there are strong signs of a serious economic downturn. In the 1990s tourist facilities have exploded, so these days most restaurants stay half-empty even in high season, as well as the hotels. We have not come across one full hotel and prices were very low too for the same reason, we always found acceptable rooms for under EUR 10, breakfast included, one of them even with a huge swimming pool. The country also underwent a painful period of currency devaluation and hyperinflation. It appears that the economy has stabilised now, but the devaluation has left deep scars in the population, the people seem to have lost confidence in their currency and economy. The tourist part of Kuta consists of relatively few streets, lined with hotels, restaurants and shops and constantly clogged by cars and a horrendous amount of motor bikes. Some of the minor streets are extremely narrow and the never ceasing flow of motor bikes turns a stroll down these streets into a nightmare, just as crossing the bigger ones is a dangerous and difficult job. We considered ourselves happy to have found the cheapest internet café in town (in a back lane) and another side lane with some good restaurants at very low prices. The Indonesian cuisine is all right but apart from the varied seafood its dishes are rather uninspiring (nasi goreng is fried rice and mae goreng fried noodles). We had already lagged so far behind with our travelblog entries that we were really on the point of giving it up for good, it was so much work; sometimes Klaudia did not know exactly how to go on with the texts and processing, uploading and describing the pictures was often too strenuous for Stephan. In the end it is for the pictures that we did not give our project up, we wanted our readers to see what wonderful things we had experienced. So we slowly moved on with our online diary, the largest part of the day was consumed that way. Anyway, there was not much more for us to do, like in Sanur it was almost impossible to swim, too dangerous either by currents or by hordes of surfers. Swimming is no fun when you always have to be on the guard for surfboards and when surfers angrily chase you away. We absolutely did not feel at ease in Kuta, there were hardly any backpackers around, most of the tourists came to Bali in order to enjoy part of their yearly holiday, passing their time between shopping and partying, whereas we had already travelled for five months and sometimes felt shabby in our old clothes which had grown too big in addition. Another factor why we felt out of place was that we had had no time and leisure to prepare our stay in Indonesia, in Kuta we could not find reliable information how to move on individually, we could not ask other travellers and all the locals only wanted to sell us one tour after the other. Although we had not completely caught up with the travelblog entries, we decided it was high time to leave Kuta. As no information on public transport was to be found, we walked to the airport (it was actually not very far) and inquired directly how to reach Lombok and Komodo, where we absolutely wanted to see the world famous dragons. Unfortunately we could not find a flight to Flores for the following day or in two days time, as we would have wished. So once again our plans did not come true and after some considering we decided to make our way there by land/sea and fly back a couple of days before our visas ended. We hoped that everything would work out well, we foresaw a flight from Flores to Bali, would spend one night in Kuta, then had another flight from Denpasar to Jakarta, where we would not leave the airport and some hours later would board the plane to Kuala Lumpur on our exit flight from Indonesia. It was a risky business, so much could go wrong, but we thought positive. Everything was carefully planned, but not everything is foreseeable and we had to stay three more days on Bali because Klaudia had caught a cold and was too weak to travel. But finally we were on the road again, on our way to Bali’s neighbouring island Lombok.

We are aware that we had only seen a small part of Bali and had completely missed out on the cultural side. It would definitely have been better to stay in Ubud, which offered similar tourist facilities (so we were told, but late) and many cultural sites around. Who knows, we might get the chance to go there in a later segment of our trip, we still had some time to spare before flying back to good old Europe. Anyway, we had already discovered that the Balinese people spoke perfect English and were always very friendly with a lovely smile on their faces. They constantly try to rip you off, but their smile makes it easier for you to stand this. In Kuta we saw many small and beautiful temples, unfortunately none of them was accessible, we got the impression that most of them were on private property. But religious activity was visible all day long, the Hindu gods were constantly offered small trays made of palm leaves filled with fragrant flowers and incense sticks and lots of food (cooked rice, crackers or fruits) so that they do not starve. It was very touching to see with what degree of normality everybody exerted their religious duty on a daily basis.

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Comments

[mary]

hey dont know how old this post is but im doing an assignment for school and was wondering if you had any misunderstanding with balinese people because of cultural differences. thanks if you cant help dont worry if you cant. my email is [e-mail] mary