4/01/10
Off we go again! Taxi to the airport for our 18:25 flight to Bali for 9 days. Spent the day in Changi Airport, again, trying not to spend anything! Finally got on the plane which is where I'm sitting now and we've just witnessed to biggest electrical storm I've ever seen, the lightening is spectacular! Just hope it doesn't hit the plane ha ha! (Yes, that was nervous laughter!)
O.k we landed safely thank god! Stood in the queue to get our visa (US$50!), realised we didn't have any Bali money (Indonesian Rupiah) on us so we had to find an ATM and then guess how much we needed - ended up withdrawing a cool million! (Think that's approx £50) Finally got outside after that fiasco and the taxi driver told us it was an hour to our hotel! Anyway, after the scariest taxi ride EVER we got to Soka Indah which was basically some bungalows next to a coach park in the middle of nowhere! We got to our room, shown by the security guard who couldn't speak English and that was it for the night. In the darkness we could make out we were right next to the sea, it was really loud! We just settled in a bit, flicked the bugs out of the room and went to sleep.
5/01/10
We woke up sweating, Bali is the hottest place we've been so far, so bloody humid it's unbearable. We went to try and find the hotel reception 'cause from what we saw on the way in last night there wasn't one! We walked up to another security guard who was facing away from us and asked him if he knew where reception was as we needed to pay our bill. As he turned around we noticed he'd got a fake glass eye which was pointing in totally the wrong direction to where he was looking. We both tried not to snigger and asked him again, he didn't understand us and I physically couldn't stand there any longer without laughing so we moved away quickly! We headed to what looked like the 'restaurant' for brekkie, managed to get toast and coffee but still no-one knew what we meant when we tried to explain we needed to pay for the room. By this time we'd decided to move from the west side of the island to somewhere a bit closer to Denpasar where there might be, well, anything! We mulled it over and thought sod it, if they don't want our money we won't give it to them so we packed our bags and left to catch the bus at the side of the road without paying! Naughty I know but what can you do?! Got the 'bus', it was tiny, rammed with people and off we went for an hour. Finally got to Denpasar and caught a taxi to Sanur on the east coast of Bali. He deopped us off and we looked for a hotel. It wasn't long before we spotted somewhere that looked nice, it just had an unusual name, Hotel Swastika! It cost about £15 per night but had A/C and because it's soooo hot we decided to have it for the night. The room is really nice, thank god for A/C! It also has a bath so Simon's happy about that! Just as we'd settled in the heavens opened and we had a massive tropical downpour, it must have been good timing on our part 'cause we would've got soaked! It's really good sitting on our porch watching the rain, reminds me of home ha ha! The beach is only about 100m away but we decided to give it a miss for today and chill instead.
6/01/10
Steve's Birthday! We had to find another place to stay as Hotel Swastika is out of our price range so after looking on the net we found a cheaper place a bit further down the coast called 'Bali Senia' which was in our price range. The place itself is basic but nice enough, and there's a TV! (thank god for TV, I'm happy now, it's so sad int it?!) Seems like most places have A/C as standard which is something I've very happy about too, it's absolutely boiling! (no sun, cloudy and really humid) Despite what you might think there's not much to do on Bali, it's not anything like I'd pictured it to be, it's quite dirty, the pavements are a piss take, it's almost impossible to walk on them! The Taxi (or should I say Taksi) drivers are the best though, no matter which direction you're walking they peep their horns and shout out the window at you "Transport? You want transport?" It's funny at first but when they do it constantly it becomes very annoying very quick! Like I said, it's not what I thought it would be like at all. We had a walk down to Sanur beach and I couldn't believe it, it reminded me more of Kochin in India than some island paradise we're all led to believe it is. Rubbish everywhere, dirty sand and the sea was this murky looking colour, certainly not the blue i'd imagined.
Basically Bali is screwed, too many years of tourism and general hammer has left the island a mess and it's such a shame. If we'd have known what it was really like we would've skipped it and gone staright to Perth!
8/01/10
Been spending our days reading and lying around in the A/C room (I can't express how muggy it is here!) not doing much at all. In our hotel there are a lot of single Ozzie blokes who work in the mines in Indonesia and all they do is get pissed morning, noon and night. I'd join 'em if it wasn't so hot, getting drunk in this heat is not a good idea! At least we have a movie channel on the TV (and it's Mel Gibson season!) so it'a not all bad! I keep saying to Simon we'll have to take pictures 'cause no-one's gonna believe us when we tell them about Bali!
12/01/10
Well, I'm not impressed with Bali at all really! The two Swiss girls staying next door to us went on a day trip just down the coast and they'd shown me the photos, to be honest it all looked as rubbish as Sanur, too comercialised, too overcrowded so we decided to save our money for Australia and not hire a scooter to explore, the roads were so unsafe as well I wasn't too keen anyway! I took a few photos as proof for people back home, you won't believe it. We spent our days reading on the balcony and wandering about at night but because it's the wet season it usually pours down with rain at least once a day, usually at night and there's almost always thunder and lightening which was good to watch. One night the thunder was so loud I thought the building was collapsing!
Today we catch the flight to Perth, excited but worried about how expensive it's gonna be!