Today we were to go on a day trip up to Lovina on the North coast of Bali visiting a few temples, Lake Bratan and Git Git Waterfalls along the way.
We had booked the day trip through the hotel and had requested a driver/guide to show us around each place we stopped at along the way. Due to be picked up at 8am we had an early breakfast and went down to the lobby a few minutes before 8am to see our "guide" was waiting for us.
We mentioned to the man at reception that our air conditioning was again leaking and he said he would have it repaired while we were out on our day trip. He offered us a different room which we accepted and said we would move rooms when we got back from Lovina.
In previous trips we had done the driver/guide was well-dressed in traditional Balinese clothing and were very friendly and talkative. This guy was in jeans and a polo shirt and looked up from his phone long enough to confirm it was us he was picking up before darting out to get his car from the hotel car park.
We got in the car and were on our way. Not a word from the "guide" as he divided his time between his phone and muttering about the traffic under his breath. After 10 minutes driving I realised I had not locked the room safe so asked if we could go back to the hotel. After two requests with no response I asked again he finally turned around and we went back to the hotel.
I ran back to our room, locked the safe and then got back into the car but was feeling uneasy about what had happened so far. Despite this we thought we'd see what happened at the first stop, Taman Ayun Temple in Mengwi.
Due to traffic it took some time to reach the temple. The driver did not speak a word for the entire car trip which seemed odd when comparing to other trips we'd booked in Bali. Anyway, we arrived at the temple and the "guide" got out, went to the ticket booth and then came back with two tickets. He said for us to call him in an hour and he'd pick us up.
We explained that we did not have a phone so could not call him so he said he'd be "over there" and to come back in an hour. At this point we realised we were not getting what we believed we had paid for and decided we would request we go back to the hotel.
We walked over to a small food stand where our "guide" was settling in for a snack and a cigarette. I asked that he take us back to the hotel as we were under the impression that we were to have a driver/guide not just a taxi driver for the day. For the money we paid this was ridiculous. He offered to call his friend to show us around but we insisted we go back to the hotel. He wasn't very happy about this.
The drive back was once again in silence with the added bonus of the "guide" switching off the air conditioning in the car for the entire trip. He was cursing and carrying on the whole way back and called our hotel to advise we were returning.
We got back to the hotel and he sped off without another word. The hotel staff member that we booked the trip through asked what the issue was and when we explained that we wanted a driver/guide, not just a taxi for the day (which we could have done much cheaper by hailing a taxi in the street) he said that such trips were not common in Bali.
We explained that we had been to Bali earlier in the year and the trips we went on then all had a driver/guide or a driver and a guide. He offered to call a friend to take us up to Lovina but we politely declined. We were told we would not be charged for the trip which was good.
As we had returned so early we were told our new room wasn't going to be ready for another 4 hours or so. We went back to our room and decided to look up day trips with a guide to Lovina with the view to perhaps going tomorrow. We found a few tours that had a guide and they were cheaper than the one we booked that apparently only included a diver.
However, as it was less that 24 hours before the trip departure we could not book online. We went down to reception to see if they could call the tour company and book us on the trip for tomorrow. We managed to get the booking confirmed so all was not lost.
Eventually, we were contacted to say our new room was ready. We moved into the new room to discover that the air conditioning was not working properly in that room either so we had to call and get the engineers in again to fix the air-conditioning while we went out for dinner.
We got back to the hotel and the air conditioning was working. However, S was feeling unwell after dinner so we called reception to see if they can cancel the day trip tomorrow as we did not want to risk S being unwell on an 11 hour day trip. We managed to get the booking cancelled without any cost.
2025-02-12