Backlogged!: Bali

We arrived in the evening and went through a fairly quick customs and immigration check. We got a visa on arrival, which cost us $25 a piece, and went through without getting asked for proof of onward travel. This happened to another traveler in line and he got hit with a fine and he had to purchase a ticket at the airport before he could go through customs. We went outside to see about transport into town only to find the taxi mafia at work again. It’s roughly $5 to leave the airport, and we tried to find people to ride in our taxi (to split the cost) but we didn’t have any luck.

We had our driver bring us to Kedin’s 1 on Poppie’s Lane 1. When we got out, we got our luggage from the cab and Becca went to see about a room. While this was happening the taxi driver demanded that I pay him 50,000Rp because “the price from the airport was only to the center of town.” After a few minutes of arguing he left without us paying the “extra fare.” Unfortunately the place was booked up and I left Becca at a restaurant while I went to find a room. We ended up booking an expensive room for one night and transferring to Kedin’s the next day.

Bali was beautiful in the daytime! During our ride in it was hard to see everything, but as we walked around the town the next day we found the architecture and the area to be pretty. The town is crowded with tourists flocking to the beach and locals hawking everything from taxi rides to beach manicures! The beach was also very nice, but again crowded. We watched new surfers try out the waves and locals ride them effortlessly. We ended up spending our first few days mostly trying to work out our visas for Australia. Then we found out that Sim (an American we met while diving in Vietnam), was getting to Bali soon, so we spent the rest of the time with him and his brother, Ashish.

Once they arrived we booked tickets to Gili Trawangan via a fast boat and a dive trip to dive the USS Liberty. The diving was great with lots of sea life that wasn’t afraid of us. Our first dive was a wall dive that started out good, but Ashish ran low on air and we ended it after 35-40 minutes. On or second dive, at the Liberty, we swam through a huge school of jack fish (video coming soon) and around the ship for about 50 minutes. It was a much better dive then the first site. On another day, we rented a car and driver for $15 for the day and road around the island to see surfers, the Uluwatu temple, Dreamland Beach which is in a closed resort owned by Suharto (the driver was not afraid to voice his concerns on the government corruption), and had a beach dinner.

We left for Gili Trawangan a few days later after an early morning rise. The ride was easy as the boat was outfitted with racecar type seats and free refreshments. The alternative was a day long trip that had us going to Lombok by a public ferry, taking a bus ride for 5-6 hours, and finally another public ferry that had us arriving at 5:30 – 6:00 PM. Instead, we landed on the beach and the crew offloaded our luggage around 10:30 AM. Sim and I walked around finding places to stay while Becca, Ashish and two other girls waited at a restaurant (the Snapper which serves amazing fish sandwiches).  I managed to get a very nice room on the beach with a balcony, satellite TV, and 24 hour electricity (turned out it was not 24 hr service), while Sim and Ashish booked a room at the end of the beach.

Gili Trawangan is beautiful. The sea is clear blue and warm, with white sand beaches and no motorized vehicles. The diving is more expensive than other places in SE Asia, but it was worth the extra price. We spent about a week on Trawangan diving and taking it easy. Ashish and Sim finished their advanced dive courses while we were here, but mostly we sat on the beach and snorkeled right off shore. There were turtles, rays, and tons of colorful fish within wading distance of dry sand.

Sim and I walked around the island one day. The other side turned out to have a fantastic defunct bar (too bad!) from which to view the sunsets. The hotels also offered all-you-can-eat salad (REAL SALAD) if you bought a main course for over $5. We ate at those a few nights and we found another restaurant that served steak for $4 – it was very good! The week flew by too fast and before we knew it we had to return to Bali. We boarded the fast boat again and headed back to Bali for two more days before we flew to Darwin Australia.

Bali turned out to be one of our favorite places of the entire trip, and one of the few we definitely want to go back to. Despite it being very touristy, it has a lot of beautiful and interesting culture (its Hindu in a Muslim country! [Becca wanted me to say that]) if you look hard enough (which isn’t hard). We recommend it to everyone!

Click HERE for Photos of Bali and Gili

Jacob

P.S. by Becca: A lot of the photos you see in the gallery are of a religious ceremony that happened on the beach one day while we were relaxing. I asked someone later and they told me it was a cleansing ritual that they perform every once in a while. They use rice and flowers and holy water to purify themselves and the beach. It was very cool to see this unique form of hinduism practiced right there in the setting sun!