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Bali ~ Indonesia
26th November ~ 2nd December 1999.
This is our personal review of the time we spent in Bali We literally turned up with a backpack each, a visa card, some � sterling, some $US and a couple of
travellers checks for backup. We had no transport booked, no accommodation and not much of an idea where to go. From reading the forum, we knew we
wanted to see Sanur, Ubud, Lovinia & Amed for a dive if we had time. We wanted to avoid Kuta and Nusa Dua, as we were of the belief that these areas
were much more populated. We obtained our first wad of Rph form the ATM in the airport. It was an eye opener to see so many wanting to give you transport
or accommodation, we had been warned so it was no surprise. We carried our own luggage after telling maybe 6 different people not to touch it. We had no small
notes to pay with and after all, we are backpackers. A blue taxi to Sanur at 20:00 for 25,000. Standard fee we heard. From the lonely planet book we picked a mid range place to stay, the taxi driver knew it when we showed him the name. First night 80,000, a bit grotty so up graded to a much better room for 120,000 with AC.
I don't care what you think of the price, We thought it was outstanding value, that would buy you just 4 beers in the UK. The place was called something like
'the Kisamataria' The kiss something anyway. Tourists were non existent and a 22:00 walk up Sanur high street introduced us to Hawkers and taught us that we
must eat before 21:00 as everywhere had stopped serving food. We found the Hawkers very persistent but can understand how desperate they are for a sale.
There were a number of beggars on the streets, even 2 year old kids would follow you with their hand out begging. We did feel very sorry for some.
3 Days we spent in Sanur, although it was nice, we got extremely off put by hawkers, at first it was a novelty, after the 50th hawker of the day,
you get fed up of being polite although never did we get mad at them. In the shops, the store keepers would follow you from 4 inches away, this I can't stand
and I'm far less likely to buy something, the shops that said hello and lets us browse nearly always got a sale. (I hope the Balinese store keepers read this).
We met a very pleasant guy, Carlos, in a restaurant, this was the one right on the corner as you begin to drive down Sanur high street on the right hand side.
He spoke great English and we ended up using him for 2 days as our driver. He was very good to us and we paid him well. Not only did he take us to places like
Tahanah Lot for the sunset and Celiuk so go silver shopping, when we mentioned we would like to buy some wooden carvings he SUGGESTED before we
brought we go to a market with him where you almost buy it straight from the carvers. This wood is unfinished, i.e. not sanded and unpolished. The prices here
were about 30% of the high street stores. Carlos arranged with his friends to finish it for us. We ended up with approx. 6 carvings about the size of a PC monitor.
That morning Carlos collected us at 06:30 took us to the market, we were home buy 14:00, he spent the rest of the day polishing our wares with his friends and
he delivered them by 18:00 that evening and wasn't sure what to charge, I offered 300,000, he seemed happy with that. Some of you may say that's expensive,
but to us, that was peanuts for the help he gave us. I don't care if it is double the average monthly wage, it was a tiny price to pay him so we gave him 400,000.
(It is always best to arrange a price before you go anywhere or do anything) Carlos also took us to a shipping agency so we could arrange for shipment back to
the UK. Carlos contact details are to follow. I asked him for these as I knew some other people would appreciate the help he can give. He works 6 days a week
but can sometimes rearrange that if he gets driving work. The shipping company charged us US$ 140 for a 1 cubic meter crate. They collected the goods from our room,
packaged them and shipped them. We were impressed with the way they had been packaged by the company. The shipping took 7 - 8 weeks, arriving before we did.
The only thing we hadn't bargained on was the �UK 160 it cost to get the goods through customs at this end. Nothing to do with the shipping company however.
The shipping company is in Sanur just off the big cross junction near the restaurant I mentioned and called
PT. DHARMA SARI FORWARDER, PO BOX 3183 Phone 0361 288822, 287070
Transport was offered everywhere and it soon becomes annoying to be constantly hassled by everyone.
We walked about 200 yards along the beach one afternoon and were approached by 72 people all wanting to sell you something. No thank you just does not work.
Its not uncommon for them to follow you for 100 yards or so grabbing at you to stop and look at there things, you actually have to stop, stare in their eyes and bark at
them for them to understand you. We were their for a Sunday and the whole world seems to stop so the locals can spend the day on the beach, this was great to see,
so many people enjoying themselves all together, most of them really poor but as happy as ever. A sight you don't get in Europe. We had a number of dramas with taxi
drivers, the bashed up bemos, you negotiate a price to go somewhere, on arrival they want more blaming a longer trip than normal because of the traffic, not a thing I
could help or even believed, the sad thing is for them, my tip would have been more than the bit extra they asked for but because of there cheating almost greedy ways,
they missed out on a larger tip. One guy missed out on 10,000, he wanted 35,000 to goto Ubud, I had already decided to give him 50,000, because in England, for 50,000
you would only get 2 Km in a taxi. On the trip I got him to stop so we could post something, so that put maybe 30 seconds on the journey. On arrival in Ubud the guy
demanded 40,000 because we stopped. This I thought was just taking the Mickey. I protested giving him the 35,000 he threw it back at me and sat at the wheel crying.
I could not believe what was happening and as he wanted, gave him the 40,000. He slimed and drove off probably thinking he had pulled the wool over another dump
easy tourist target. Nevermind, I saved 10,000 out of his tantrum. The greedy git loses, Unlucky mate. In Ubud we had guys in the street stopping our taxi to show us
photos of accommodation, again we had picked a place from the LP guide. This time we paid 150,000 per night on Monkey forest road after walking around looking
at a number of places. That seemed to be the best thing to do, you walk in the street with your backpack on, your approached by loads of people offering places,
without committing yourself you have a look, if you like it you negotiate a fair price if you don't or you don't get the price you want, you look elsewhere! simple. We
seemed to be the only guests in the place we chose, although it seemed nice enough! Again we were continually hassled by guys and girls wanting us to buy things,
some were aggressive and some were quite pleasant, none of them left you alone once you had said no thank you and some of them continued to hassle you more
even after we had brought things from them. The monkey forest was lovely, no hassle form the natives (monkeys), we did visit late afternoon as we had been warned
from this forum. There was a mother dragging her dead baby around which was awful to see. We were told the baby had been dead for nearly 2 weeks, every time
someone approached it, the mother went mad. We managed to get cash from an ATM in Monkey Forest road. We only stayed in Ubud for the one night before
moving on to Lovinia. A friend of one of the hotel workers took us there for 150,000. This included a 1 hour stop at the lakes and few photo stops at scenic points
and paddy fields, also 2 hours at Gitgit waterfall. On the long climb down to the waterfall there are hundreds of market stalls, every single one try's to pull you inside.
There was no way we were going to buy things on the way down, you only have to carry them back up. The rain was on and off so we took shelter in various stalls,
these ones we purchased the odd garment in and found some of people really nice, many wanting to perfect there English language.
What we didn't like was that many of the stalls are identical and when you buy something from one stall, SOMETIMES, other stall holders hurl abuse at you.
Nice touch we thought. Sorry if this report is a bit hit & miss but I'm reporting as I remember things. If its getting to long for some of you, go have a rest and come
back later! In Lovinia we picked a place from the LP, this was by far the best accommodation we had in our entire 10 week trip. A lovely, clean, spacious,
air conditioned, hot water, massive bathroom, nice patio etc all for 120,000. There were also smaller rooms at much the same price but a bit of hard bargaining
got us the bigger room. I would recommend the place to anyone and it was just a 1 minutes walk from the beach. I can't remember the name of the place but it
has a salt water swimming pool and this is mentioned in the lonely planet guide so should be easy to track down. We were a little let down by Lovinia, I think our
expectations had been put higher than we found, all the same the place was nice and quite, the beach was OK but had a lot of rubbish on the beach.
Sitting on the beach draws the hawkers in and they will just sit right next to you when your trying to relax and sleep or read. Very off putting that can be.
Even when sat in the beach bars having something to eat the hawkers are standing at the tables trying to sell. Your just not left alone for 5 minutes.
That night, in the beach bar we ate a meal, there was a Australian guy about 40 years old on his own, very drunk and going round to most tables trying to move in
on peoples conversations. Many of these turned into arguments as he was mouthing off about how Australians were so great and the nationality of whoever he was
talking too was so inferior. Obviously this didn't go down to well with some and many people either got up and changed tables or told him to leave them alone.
One guy got quite upset shouting at him and as he wouldn't leave them he grabbed him out of his chair and pushed him away. He then came to us, having heard
him mouth off about Poms we spoke with a perfect French accent and pretended we could not speak English, "Je ne par Anglais" and a shrug of the shoulders
done the trick and off he went. The only people left was a group of locals hanging around outside. He clearly began to annoy them. 20 minutes later he wandered
off into the darkness and their was a an unnerving crash, the sound of 20 moped falling over. With that, the dazed Ozzie came stumbling back into the bar covered
in blood, with it streaming down his back. Did he fall or did someone give him what he was asking for ??? I guess we'll never know. Now before all you Australians
think I'm having a pop at you, I'm not. Every country unfortunately has individuals like him, especially England. These people act in this way because they are bums!
Remember, this sort of person represents themselves, not a nation. In the back of my mind, I hope someone dun him over and he didn't fall. The guy was really
asking for it. One of the Balinese lads wedged him on a moped and took him away, perhaps to hospital. Anyway, whilst sitting there counting the days,
we suddenly realised we were to fly the following day and didn't have time for Amed. On our last morning, we got up at 05:30, went to the beach and went
out in one of those tiny canoe things in search of dolphins, our guy went away from the rest of the boats and went out for about 2 hours. We saw no dolphins
and we began to worry for our safety. We were miles from land, the sea became rough, we had no paddles, no life jackets no water and we could see no other boats.
If the engine failed we would be in trouble. We asked the guy to turn back but he wouldn't until we had seen dolphins, he said at the start, we only pay half if we see no dolphins.
He was so worried about his money he wouldn't turn back. I gave him the full price, 40,000 and told him to turn, at the sight of money he reluctantly did.
he hawkers almost attacked us as we got back on the beach, selling wooden dolphins. We weren't interested as you could imagine.
The local shuttle bus was slow and uncomfortable and given the choice again, I would pay 200,000 for a taxi back to Kuta,
the bus driver was either on drugs or a death wish and I'm surprised we made it. In Kuta, we were pleasantly surprised that the hawkers were few and far between,
they were also more pleasant and took 'no thank you' for an answer. It was here were couldn't find an ATM that would take VISA so we changed just �UK20 at one
of the dodgy money changers we had been warned about. At 11,500 to the UK � I was expecting 230,000. The guy agreed and counted out 203,000.
I didn't touch the money, looked at him and smiled. He picked it up and counted it out again the 200,000 first, then when 10,20,30 thousand,
I laughed again and told him to do better than that. I want another 27 of those ones I think. He knew he'd been rumbled and counted out the right amount before
I gave him my �20. Looking back I'm pleased we sampled Bali life, we loved the landscape and culture, we hated the constant hawker hassle, we hated constant
bartering although with some traders, it was done in a humorous way. Sometimes I tried to sell my own stuff to the hawkers. We hated the pavements, lucky we didn't
fall into them. They are a good 18 inches high and walking along them is like climbing a huge staircase, constantly up and down. There were a number of stray dogs
but caused us no hassle. On the whole we can not put it down as it is their way of life, some of it just simply did not suit us, that is not there fault. I've read reports
on the bali travel forum were people really sl*g it off, I've also read reports were people describe it as the best place on earth. I don't agree with either of those type of people but it shows that we
all have different views. If we didn't, the world would be very dull. We are pleased we sampled the place and if time was wound back, I would still visit just for the
experience although we won't be rushing back in a hurry. We have not ruled out a second trip completely, the world is so big I'll see other things first.
The people are great if they are not after a sale, if they want you to buy from them, they are different, some are horrible, just like the 40 year old Ozzie, you see,
all nations have them. Come to the UK, you'll find loads of people like that. I have read tons of messages about people looking for the best exchange rate, and
where to buy things cheapest, my view is that it is all so cheap, why waste time hunting round to save a few cents? Don't get me wrong, I'm just an ordinary
working class kid that saved for 5 years to sponsor this trip and will be paying off a loan for another 2 at least, but when on holiday I don't go all out to save next to nothing.
We did buy tee shirts and a few watches, various bits. To be honest, the quality was poor, the tee shirts last just a few washes before they look tatty, the watches are just a joke,
the workings may be fine, but the straps and faces are poor copies. The ink runs on the printed garments and they go out of shape quickly. However,
just remember your paying so little for this stuff, so what. You get what you pay for. Some of you will be ranting by now, some of you will be bored, some of you will have
mixed feelings about your forth coming first trip. Just go and see how you like it. Its an experience. As far as this Timor trouble goes, we saw nothing to alarm us and did
not feel threatened at all. I don't think you Ozzies need to worry about that sort of thing. I'm going to go now and look forward to your comments.
Thanks again for those that take the trouble to put down some good info, it helped us no end. The name of our driver in Sanur was Carlos, find him in the big restaurant
on the right hand side as you enter the main Sanur high street.
Or contact him: Jalan Danau Toba No2, Sanur 80228, Bali. Phone (62) 361 288462 or (62) 361 285245.
Hope this has some useful information for some of you. Hope this was interesting for the rest. |
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