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Published: April 19th 2007
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I am still very behind in writing this so it may be relatively brief.
I had decided that as I was both flying into and out of Bali I could either visit places to the east or west of Bali, not both. I chose to the west as this gave me the chance to go to Komodo to see the world's largest lizards.
First stop was inevitably Kuta. Kuta is an Australian enclave where you can get all your regular footy matches, go surfing and drink VB; in short it's not authentic Bali. That said it is a lot of fun and there are plenty of bars with good live music and cheap booze. It didn't take long before I realised that there were plenty of ways to be scammed of your money. I accepted a free bracelet from a shop owner (while paying a ridiculously over-the-top price for a watch I was buying) and was then dragged into her shop. She and her friend then started to give me a pedicure and manicure respectively, all the while I was insisting that although this was very kind I had not asked for it and would not pay. They
kept saying that I wouldn't have to pay and then once it was over I got the sob story about how if they didn't get the money their boss would beat them; so in the end I crumbled and got ripped off. I suppose this sort of thing is bound to happen to a naive young man from the home counties on his first day in SE Asia, but I made a resolution not to let this sort of thing happen again (which nearly happened).
From Kuta I spent a night in Padang Bai which is a quiet fishing village with a couple of nice beaches. Padang Bai is also the ferry port to Lombok so i was off the next day and spent the night in Sengigi. I had been persuaded to go there by the shuttle bus driver on the other side. He charged way to much for the lift and also tried to sign us up with his mate for various things once we arrived at the town. I made another resolution to use public transport, not shuttles, and to get a good price too (this would prove difficult as even on public transport the price
is up for debate).
The next day I did well. I got all the way to Gili Trawangan by public transport with the real prices (near enough) that I found out the previous evening. This does not include of course the taxi I had to take to and from an ATM as this was my mistake and not part of the plan. Half way through the route I realised that I didn't have any money. There are no ATMs on the Gili islands where I was headed so at a largish town I got off of the bus and went into the local bank. It was quite a shock, the bank was straight out of the stone age. There was no ATM, no money changing facilities and not even any computers. All the banking was done on paper, it is obviously just in the tourist areas that there are ATMs; normal people must use the normal banks with everything recorded on scraps of paper.
Anyway, I got to Gili Trawangan and it was a paradise. The beaches were beautiful, the sea was clear and the bars were cheap. This said, there is not actually anything to do so
I signed up for a SCUBA diving course. This was a lot of fun and provided something to do during the day. In the evenings I would play darts and have a few drinks with Jason, an American professional online poke player who lives in China.
I reluctantly left the Gili Islands and started a monumental trip to Labuanbajo, Flores. I left my lodgings on Gili T. at 10 in the morning and got to Labuanbajo late the following afternoon. The bus left from Mataram, the capital of Lombok. The bus owners son took me around town to get a few last minute provisions (for which I had to pay handsomely) and then an hour late we were off. Dinner was taken at a small family restaurant where we all bundled in and had various things with rice.
Labuanbajo is a tin shanty town but in a nice setting with mountains all around. It also has some great diving in Komodo NP so I signed up for a couple of day trips. The diving here is done from a boat on a day trip. So you go out in the morning, sail for a couple of hours,
dive, have lunch, dive again and sail back. It was a great couple of days and I should have liked to have stayed longer except that there was a boat sailing back to Lombok so it was time to go.
The boat trip was 4 days and with just me, Irish Vincent and the crew it could have got a bit claustrophobic. However, it was a lot of fun. We did some good snorkelling, the crew were fun and the food was fine. The crew played a game a bit like shove ha'penny (I think) or perhaps a bit like pool. Anyway it was fun and they let us have a go too.
The highlight of this section of the trip was the Komodo Dragons which we saw both on Rinca and Komodo Islands. Lots of them hang around the kitchen so you are guaranteed a sighting. Out on the short treks you are unlikely to see any. They are spectacular beasts and real killers (I heard a few weeks later that a local boy had just been killed by one). A childhood ambition was fulfilled in seeing them.
Once back to Lombok Vincent and I both
got to the Bali ferry and to Padangbai in the evening. I said goodbye as he went off to Ubud and I was to stay in Padangbai that evening.
The following day I went up to Tulamben on the north coast of Bali. I did 2 SCUBA dives there including the Liberty shipwreck which was very good. I then hot footed it down to Ubud, the cultural capital of Bali.
This was a cracking place to spend some time. I went to dance performances in the evening and rode about the Balinese countryside on motorbike by day. Two of the big tourist attractions I visited were the elephant cave temple that was only discovered and excavated in the 1920s and a temple carved out of the sides of a valley. Both are working temples so I donned my sarong on each visit. I also had the best food in that I had had in Indonesia. The best was roast pork with rice and special Balinese spices, it was almost better than my own Mother's roast pork. The dance performances and the accompanying gamelan music was also very interesting and a stark contrast to glitzy Kuta.
I finished
Me and dragon
Perhaps within biting distance off Indonesia with another night or two in Kuta and met yet more Aussies there.
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