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Dan and I started off our trip to Indonesia
just under two weeks ago, when we were reunited in Kuta, after his very long
trip over from Central America (via 3 flights) and my messed up flights from Australia (do
not travel with Jetstar, ever). We spent
our first 2 days in Kuta, which is where a lot of people come to Bali to stay, and end up not seeing any of the rest of
the island, which is a bit pointless. It’s
also the Aussie version of Magaluf, and so is a tad tacky. But it does have a LOT
of market stalls/shops, selling every possible fake designer product/souvenirs/leather
goods etc etc, so I was happy. So, we
(actually just mostly I) spent a lot of time browsing the shops (which is
probably the reason that my backpack now weighs over 25kg, and I have just had
to take out one fifth of the contents and carry it onto my flight to Bangkok). We were staying in a pretty decent hotel
right in the centre of Kuta, so we also managed to enjoy some pool time, which
allowed me to continue to work on the tan, which had somewhat faded during my
time in Australia. Other than a very
disappointing evening of watching the England vs. Germany WC match, Kuta
was really good. But we were definitely
ready to get out of there after a couple of days, as it’s a massive tourist
trap, and I think if one more person had offered me “transport, lady?” or tried
to sell me any more fake bags (which I was very restrained, and did not
purchase a single one of), I might have snapped.
So, from Kuta we went to the Gili Islands
for a few days in complete paradise. We
headed straight to Gili Trawangan, which is the largest and most popular of the
3 habitable Gili Islands (unless you have a lot of money
to spend in one of the smart resorts on Gili Air). We had a brilliant four days there, spending
the day times on the beautiful white sand beach and in the crystal clear sea,
lounging on one of the many different seating options on the beach, all of which
are owned by one restaurant/bar or the other, and so you get food/drink brought
directly to you. A traveller’s dream. Gili Trawangan is full of young travelers and
holidaying Aussies, so is a really sociable place. There is one main street which has a ton of
open air bars and restaurants on it, many of which serve a fish BBQ in the
evening, which were very good. And the
best thing about Indonesia
in general is that everything is crazy cheap, which makes a nice change from
the ridiculous cost of living in Australia. We have been eating meals for under 2 quid sometimes,
which I have obviously been loving.
On one of the days in Gili we decided to actually be
productive and went on a snorkeling trip around the different islands, which
was amazing. Having not seen too much on
our first three snorkels other than fish, on our last swim of the trip we went
to Turtle Point and saw loads of turtles which was really great.
After the Gili Islands, we came back to Bali
to embark on what would prove to be a very interesting (!) road trip round the
island. For the first couple of days it
was just Dan and me, but then one of his friends from uni (who we will now be traveling
with for the rest of the time) joined us.
The whole thing started with a bunch of people recommending to us that
driving round the island is the easiest way, and having found a car for
120,000IDR rental per day (less than 10 pounds) we decided to take it on, and
met what looked like a very fun, yet slightly decrepit, jeep which would be the
bane of our existence for the next week.
It all started off less than smoothly as Dan had to negotiate the tiny
alleys of Kuta, which somehow manage to pass for “roads” with 2-way traffic on
them. After hitting a wall within the
first 5 minutes, getting wedged in a road, and causing various traffic jams
(the other problem with driving around Bali is that there are hundreds of
scooter/motorbike drivers everywhere, all of whom seem to have a death wish and
don’t get out of the way of cars), we managed to get out of Kuta and got on our
way. Seeing the island from our own car
was definitely a brilliant way of doing it.
However the problems started to emerge on the second morning, when we
mysteriously couldn’t get the car started.
After help from the owner of the homestay where we were, we managed to
get what seemed to be a knackered battery going with a rolling start (I think I
have learnt more about the mechanics of a car in the last 6 days than I have in
the entire 4 and a half years I’ve been driving). We then thought everything was fine, until we
came back to the car after going to see a temple that morning (which was
beautiful – perched on a cliff overlooking the sea), and again couldn’t get it
started. And so a pattern emerged –
every time we turned the car off for more than 20 minutes, the battery died and
we had to do a rolling start, usually with the assistance of more than one
local, who luckily were incredibly helpful.
So not only did we always have to park on a hill, with masses of space
behind us (which is not always easy to find), but most of the time it was
easier just to not stop the car. Which
became interesting for example when we picked up Dan’s friend from the airport,
and whilst waiting for her for half an hour couldn’t turn the car off as it
wouldn’t have turned back on, so we had to drive round the airport car park for
half an hour solid.
We did manage to go to some great places – Uluwatu in the
very south of the island, where we visited our first temple, Padang Padang,
which is a very popular surf spot with a beautiful beach, an incredibly
stunning lake called Batur in the north, which has two huge volcanoes next to
it and so makes for incredible views.
However, when I parked up in Ubud (which is a really cool, arty part of
the island where we spent 2 nights), and I was waiting in the car whilst the others
went to find somewhere to stay and I suddenly saw a group of locals pointing at
the bonnet of the car, from where a huge amount of smoke was emerging, and then
the engine wouldn’t turn off even when the key was out of the ignition (the car
had some odd capabilities), we decided that enough was enough and called the
guy we’d rented it from, who brought us a replacement car straight away (also a
decrepit jeep, but it turned on!).
The last couple of days were spent around Lake Batur
as we loved it so much, and yesterday morning we did a sunrise hike of the volcano,
which was brilliant. Starting at 3am, we
walked up for a couple of hours and then sat at the very top to watch the sun
rise around 6.30am.
I think we were just all delighted to be able to return the
car to Kuta yesterday afternoon with it and us unscathed. I also managed to negotiate Kuta’s streets
without a single scrape/accident/infuriated local, which was fairly miraculous
given how ridiculous the streets are. So
it all worked out for the best in the end!
