The End of Indonesia

From Bromo we'd been convinced by a silky talking bus tout to take a combination bus ticket all the way to Denpasar in Bali. As regular readers (all one of you, Mum) will know from previous blogs, we don't get on too well with combination tickets (see "Scamming the Scammers") so we made doubly sure we'd be ok this time by checking repeatedly with the tout that it was one bus all the way from Bromo to Denpasar, that actually got on the boat and off again with us on it. Satisfied with his reply after checking three times, we bought the ticket (160,000 rupiah (about 10 pounds)) and set off. Straight away the company conspired to make us suspicious by forcibly removing the receipt which said Probolinggo - Denpasar and replacing it with one which says "Akas Karcis Bus Patas" and some other phrases in Indonesian, but nowhere on it does it say Probolinggo to Denpasar.

At the port, what a surprise, and despite our protestations we were ushered off the A/C bus we'd been promised would take us all the way to Denpasar and hustled into a bemo (converted minibus). The company decided to make themselves look as much like cowboys as possible by switching touts midway through this process but Steve manfully watched the second tout like a hawk to make sure he didn't run off the ferry before it left.

We finally made it to Denpasar at about 10 pm after a journey in yet another of those cramped bemos with no leg room, bemused by the fact that the company which obviously was intending to take us all the way to Denpasar felt the need to made themselves look as shady as possible. If they would just wear uniforms to distinguish themselves from the myriad genuinely dodgy characters, or give us a ticket in sections (bus 1, boat, bus 2) it would be simpler but as it is travel in Indo is always a gauntlet as you never know who to trust until it's too late.

Our first stop in Bali was Ubud. Someone we met later in the Gilis said they were going to Ubud as it was "not touristy". My mouth dropped open when she said this as I don't think I've ever been anywhere less touristy! The town is nice, though it merges with Denpasar but it's just a strip of cafes, temples, dance performances, art galleries, and of course a lot of touts, as well as bus loads of middle aged package tourists. I was feeling like death warmed up this day (8 October) so Steve found us a lovely room overlooking rice terraces and I stared at the duvet for the rest of the day while he beetled around making all sorts of clandestine arrangements for my birthday, when, fortunately I was feeling much better.

In the morning there were flowers outside the room, and then we went out to do a batik course which I can highly recommend if you go to Ubud. It's not cheap (for a traveller) but for 360,000 rupiah (just over 20 pounds) you get to make and take home your own batik painting. Steve's was a psychedelic representation of Mt Merapi erupting and mine was a toytown version of a Batak (Sumatran) house. Needless to say they're not that professional but we had a lot of fun making them. In the evening Steve had arranged a birthday cake in a restaurant, all in all if I hadn't been feeling a bit rough it would have been one of my best birthdays ever.










From Ubud we thought we'd do a spot of surfing. We took a taxi to Dreamland, a famous surf spot. It dumped us there and immediately retreated, at which point we discovered there was no accommodation there, it was 4pm, we had all our bags, and a taxi cartel wouldn't come below 120,000 rupiah (8 pounds) for a 30 minute taxi ride back to Kuta which we knew shouldn't exceed 50,000. Undeterred, and unwilling to pay their price we set off walking back to the main road. It's about 3km and with our bags we eventually gave up when we saw a 1km long hill ahead.

Camped out by the roadside to Dreamland about to be rescued by Daniel

We had by then shaken off the taxi touts who followed us convinced we would eventually pay their ridiculous price. Fortunately we were rescued by a local Balinese guy called Daniel and two friends who were delivering cargo to a golf club and hitched a ride with them in their pick up for 60,000 (down from their starting offer of 200,000!)

After being dropped in Kuta, Bali's tourist ghetto (the Australians' Ibiza they call it) we walked for another 2km with bags before we found an overpriced budget room (125,000 - everything is overpriced due to naive tourists from Oz overpaying for things) and collapsed.

Surfing in Kuta was fun. As some of you know Steve and I have done a bit of surfing and we found the waves here to be ideal for advanced beginners like us. We both caught and stood up on virtually every wave. But then... the waves disappeared, we both paddled out too far and got totally wiped out by 8 foot waves. The boards were vertical in the breaker and we were catapulted over the top of them - fortunately both us and the boards were unhurt though we were a bit shellshocked after that!

We were a bit shocked by Kuta as it's the kind of place we would normally avoid like the plague - all touts, pubs and loud tourists so we decided to upsticks to Gili Trawangan off the coast of Lombok. The Gili islands (incidentally Gili means Island in Sasak so backpackers have been visiting the Island Islands for 30 years!) are three tropical islands popular for diving and just relaxing. We met up with Cilia from Borobudur and briefly partied like it was 1999, but we were really here for the relaxation, snorkeling and diving so most of the time was spent on the water.














Partying like it's 1999 with Cilia

Steve failed to hire flippers for the snorkeling trip and so couldn't keep up with the guide when he was chasing turtles, and spent the rest of the time vainly looking for more of them. I was more lucky, spotting one when snorkeling off the beach, and another diving.

Steve unfortunately couldn't dive due to asthma (there was no dive doc on the island to assess him) so I went alone for a fun dive. The amount of time you get to dive is dependent on how fast you use the oxygen and I was so nervous down there that I used all mine up in 35 minutes, whereas the other beginner with me still hadn't used hers up after 50. But, I got to see a sleepy turtle, white-tipped reef sharks (only babies though!) three octopi, moray eel, lionfish and lots of lovely nemo fish (clownfish).










The rest of our time on the Gilis was spent relaxing, spending too much money (captive audience on an island you see) and visiting the Bird Park on Gili Meno where friendly parakeets and lorikeets sit on you.














Steve and his new bird

On the way back to Bali we took our last combo ticket, and despite misgivings and a long wait on the ferry while the one docking port was cleared of the previous boat, we made it back to Denpasar, where after a final day looking around the city (surprisingly leafy and full of temples) we catch our first flight (sorry purists, we tried) to Perth to hopefully start a labouring job in Western Australia.