Advertisement
Published: October 12th 2012
Bali
It was only a couple of hours from Singapore to fly to Kuta, Bali. We were couchsurfing once again with an American guy called Tai who was living and working in Bali. He advised us to get a taxi to his place from the taxi counter prepay as we would be less likely to be ripped off by the taxi touts – ah here we go again...
So he was correct of course as soon as we paid our $25 visa fee and proceeded out of the airport we were accosted by lots of Bali men asking us if we needed transport, “Very cheap mate, very cheap..”
So having pre paid for our taxi (80,000Rp - £5.70) we were dropped off outside Tai’s place. There are hardly any road signs or numbers on houses so glad we were not trying to find it ourselves. Luckily he was in already from work and we popped out to have a beer and grab some food. Indonesia is very cheap to eat out especially if you eat where the locals do, so we were not surprised Tai had no food in his house as it would cost him more to
buy the food then to pop out for dinner.
He took us into the main area of Kuta which is the backpackers and tourist central. Very busy, full of bars, clubs and restaurants. Lots of young, tanned people walking about. We headed off to enjoy a beer on the beach and sorted out a bike hire for Terry and I for the next 4 days we were around.
We headed off to a local market and we enjoyed a Nasi Gorang (rice with mixed veg, fried egg on top, with a southern fried chicken) and 3 beers all for under $5 – really going to miss this once in Oz.
We mostly we went out exploring on our bike during the day, Terry had a go at the surfing but the waves were for too strong for me, I enjoyed watching though. On the evenings we popped out for dinner then watched an episode of Breaking Bad, if you haven’t seen this yet, then get it, it’s brill!
The weather was not too great whilst we were in Kuta, as it was low season. We had a good browse around all the tourist shops but did
not see any fake items we liked, which is what most tourists buy here.
Ubud We had another couchsurfer to stay with in Ubud, This place is inland about an hours drive north of Kuta. The lady we were staying with had just been to Singapore on a business trip so offered to pick us up on her way through Kuta, bonus!
We met her at a very expensive Deli store which was full of expats. Had some nice food on displays and could get a lot of imported names. The lady was from Jakarta, Indonesia originally, had moved to Singapore with work and recently moved to Bali. She is working from home at the time being and hopes this will last!
Ubud is where Eat, Pray, Love was set so many tourists come here to see the familiar places from the film. I watched it last in Canada with our friends Al and Marie-Claire and did not remember too much. Supposedly the old crazy healer guy in it is very much crazy in real life but has some very shroud business men working with him to charge foreigners a fortune to meet him. Supposedly women
come here to recreate the film and visit him in their droves.
Our surfer met him and he kept repeating the same stuff to her, she said he was clearly not all there but was still fun to meet him.
Anyway we finally arrived at her house which was amazing, like I would imagine my dream home to be. It was set within a paddy field, all open planned, so the only doors were for the bedrooms. The kitchen / diner had a roof over it but no sides was all open, then you head upstairs where the lounge area is all open with views over the fields, was incredible. We really loved the house but as it was so open, so did the insects and wildlife. We could see huge spiders and massive ants crawling around, but they did not bother me, which surprised me. I think as the spiders were dangling off the trees outside and I never saw one in her house.
We hired a moped from her friend and was able to visit the surrounding area. We rode out to see the active Batur volcano. Was overlooking a gorgeous lake and
Ubud
The open plan kitchenthe scenery was beautiful. Along they way we stopped at one of the farms where they state they make Luwak coffee. Luwak coffee is the most expensive coffee in the world, it sells for £70 a cup in London so we thought we would see how they make it and possibly sample. There were plenty farms to choose from but we went into one. The coffee beans are extracted from the droppings of the native palm civet — a cat-like creature that eats only the ripest coffee cherries - but can’t digest the hard centers.
They digest the fruit pulp and excrete the beans on to the forest floor.
The droppings, combined with the animal’s gastric juices, are said to be the key to the coffee’s rich, frothy flavour. So basically its poo!!
As we took into a guided tour around the farm we were told that the cavet animal was not there at the moment as it was being looked after by a friend but not to worry as they had plenty of samples for us at $5 a taste. Sounds like a bargain but we realised it was all a con, they did not make
Ubud
the lounge the coffee here as was just all set up for naive tourists. We quickly escaped and headed back to home!
After a couple of nice relaxing days in Ubud we set goodbye to our couchsurfing host and caught the bus to the east of the island ready to board a ferry over to the island of Lombok.
Lombok and Gili Islands 12/3/12
The ferry was a car ferry and also pretty slow so took around 5-6hrs to cross to Lombok. Once on the other side we negotiated a taxi to take us up the west coast to the town of Sengigi. Here we spent just the one night. Was nice to hang out at the beach but the weather was a little cloudy so we found a nice bar and drank tea whilst using the WiFi. Yes tea, I really miss just being able to make a cup of tea when we like.
Next day we caught a taxi up to the ferry port (if you can call it a ferry port more like a beach front and you have to wade out to the fishing
boats). We were dropped off at bar with a load of other foreigners and told to wait here until the boat to take us to the Gili islands was ready to board. A very pushy man came over trying to sell us our return journey back to Bali, I said no as did not know what day we would leave or how we would, he said it was an open ended but I took a real dislike to him so thought no way am I buying off this guy, way too pushy! He managed to sell his tickets to the other foreigners but after that we were dirt in his eyes. He kept giving us evil looks, I asked what time the boat was leaving and he just ignored me. In the end he told all the other foreigners the boat was ready so I said what about ours and he just ignored us! What a loser, so we just made our way to the beach front, insisted he gave us our boat ticket which we had already paid for and off we went to join the boat. The boat was full of foreigners and locals, totally over packed but
luckily it was only a short hop across to the Gili Air Island we were staying at.
As it was out of season we found a really nice beach house which would of been 6-9 times much more then what we paid for in the peak season. We ended up staying for 5 days but mostly because there was really bad weather so the boat between Lombok and Bali was not running as the waves were too high. Some people were panicking as they had planes to catch but we had a few days spare so decided to sit it out. However there is not a lot to do when you cannot sunbathe or go into the sea so we were in paradise but extremely bored. The only book I could find to read was Nelson Mandella’s autobiography which was pretty good actually!!
However the time came for us to head back to Bali and onward to Melbourne where we would spend the next 7 months working...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.103s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0593s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Will
non-member comment
Wow! My jaw is on the floor, still travelling and still so many amazing experiences. I'm in awe.