Welcome to Bali!

Thursday, June 09, 2011
Sanur, Bali, Indonesia
We woke up at 8:30am and packed our remaining stuff before heading downstairs for breakfast. I still felt a little nauseous and then came the episode of diarrhoea. We couldn't exactly put off travelling so we were soon called to say our minivan shuttle was waiting for us. I reached the bottom of the stairs and was scanning the floor for my flip flops but they were no where in sight. I just stood there a little confused as Andrew went to ask a member of staff. It turned out that somebody who either lived or worked at Bale Kampung had taken my flip flops as they went to have a shower, so they were returned to me dripping wet by a laughing member of staff. I wasn't amused at all and just walked out of the place to the minibus. The owner gave Andrew a business card and was interested in finding out if we were returning to Lombok. We had to sit in the front as the van was full. We set off and after around half an hour we parked up in a random car park. We had no idea why and the other passengers asked if we were going to Lembar but we didn't even know where we were meant to get the ferry! They told us the port was at Lembar so we just sat and waited to see what happened next. I started to feel worse so I spotted a toilet where I had to pay 2,000 rupiah to enter. I only had a 5,000 note so I asked for change but the response was laughter so I just put 1,500 into the box. I couldn't be sick in the end so returned to the van as Andrew went to try his luck. He was told it was 1,000 rupiah but again there was no sign of change. However, Andrew just stood until somebody pulled change out. I had to ask the driver to wait until Andrew returned before we set off for Lembar. We still had no idea why we stopped but at least we arrived in the correct place. 

Once we got off the minivan we were surrounded by people trying to sell us rice, fruit, water and the odd knife! We just stood around pretty clueless before deciding to walk to to ferry . However, we were soon called back to wait with everyone else. I literally just had a seat and then we were asked to follow somebody to then form a queue next to the ferry. We got on board and were ushered up to the top deck by the crew. There didn't appear to be many seats as the ferry also transported vehicles, but we found a had wooden bench in the corner. It became clear that we had in fact been segregated as the Indonesian people were all sat together on the lower deck which had a food and drink counter as well as a TV. On the other hand we were all squeezed into a small space and people were being ripped off! One lady bought two pot noodles for 15,000 rupiah and handed over a 20,000 note. She was waiting for her change but the young boy just looked at her blankly as she asked for 5,000 change and eventually ran away. We managed to buy a packet of rice and fish for 5,000 which wasn't too bad a price. The ferry finally set off and as we looked down below we saw people flat out asleep on the roof of a lorry. I felt so queasy for the whole of the journey and was convinced that I had food poisoning as a result of the cold chicken I was served at Bale Kampung . The journey took four and a half hours in total and even Andrew was sick of his life by the time we pulled up at Padang Bai. 
 
We got off the ferry and there were people waiting to ask us for our ticket. We were told to wait by the side of the road, but Andrew suddenly needed the toilet. The crowd of people were then told to follow somebody so I was left on my own waiting for Andrew! We had to run a little to catch up but we turned a corner to meet chaos. As usual, the whole thing was lacking in organisation so we were put into a minivan but then told to get out and change into a different one. It turned out that we were the only people going to Sanur so we had to firstly drop of people at Ubud which was in the centre of Bali. This was a detour for us so we weren't best pleased as it just added unnecessary time onto our journey. In addition, the minivan driver was a complete maniac as he insisted on overtaking every single car no matter how dangerous the manoeuvre. We reached Ubud but the driver dropped the other people off at the wrong end and even when Andrew went to help them read the map the door was closed in his face! He clearly wanted to get the journey done in the shortest time possible and didn't care that he was completely unhelpful in the process . It turned out that 'Lombok Family' was yet another untrustworthy Indonesian company. We assumed the same thing would happen to us so we asked the driver if he knew the address of our accommodation. He repeated the address back to us and nodded so we stupidly thought that was where we would get dropped off. However, we were dropped off on a main road and there was no accommodation in sight, so we asked him once more and his response was to point down a different road. We were more than slightly annoyed but we got our backpack and asked in a shop just to clarify that he had told us the right thing. He had but we were told that it was quite a walk and that we should maybe get a taxi. There was one waiting just up the road but he completely refused to use the meter and offered a flat 50,000 charge. We knew it wasn't a 50,000 rupiah drive away so we decided to set off walking. There was nothing lining the main road but we saw a McDonald's sign up ahead which gave us hope we were on the right track. We still were't entirely sure so asked another taxi who said they would take us using the meter . The only thing was they didn't actually know where Little Pond Home stay was situated but they did take us to the street that was lined with accommodation. We got out of the taxi, paid the 12,000 rupiah fee, and went to collect our backpack out of the boot. I failed to lift it up properly so that it fell and hit Andrew on the head. The taxi driver was apologetic but at least we were on the right road. We decided to keep on walking it seemed to fizzle out so we crossed the road and returned up the road. We couldn't see Little Pond anywhere so in the end we made the decision to just check out a different homestay as there were plenty around. We stopped at 'Coco Homestay' and were shown a room for 120,000 rupiah. It was very clean and it was 80,000 less than we were expecting to pay so we agreed to stay the night. Andrew had a quick shower before we went to get something to eat. As Sanur catered to mainly older people and families the restaurants were a little over priced for us but seemed to be cheaper than Ubud. We stopped at a placed called 'The Ducks Nutz' and were happy to receive friendly rather than pushy service. Andrew ordered a steak burger and I had pumpkin soup as my stomach still didn't feel one hundred percent. We walked back to our room and crashed out as we were exhausted after the long journey.
Other Entries

Comments

2025-05-22

Comment code: Ask author if the code is blank