Bali before Labuan Bajo: August 2015
Journey to Bali
Our journey from Mt. Bromo to Bali took about 5 hours longer than slated. It was supposed to be 11 hours, actually less, but they said to give it 11 hours to be on the safe side. We were told three different pick-up times, none of which were correct. In the end, we left over an hour later than the latest time quoted. Not a good start. We zoomed down the mountain in an overcrowded minibus. Most people were going to a different destination, so once we were back in Probbolingo, we, and another couple left the minibus for another slightly bigger van which was to take us to Bali. From the start it was hot. The air conditioner was supposedly on, but it just felt like a fan. The only windows this 6-row van were in the front. I was in the middle row and getting hot. Javier was in front of me, and I started noticing people uncomfortably shifting in the heat, but no one said anything. I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned up to Javier and asked him to ask the guys in front of him it the air was, in fact, on because the people are starting to melt. The guys in front were German and the rest of their group of 8 were in the back. They chatted back and forth with Javier and then their people started chiming in. He turned up the fan, and I said that we needed the temperature changed, not stronger hot air blown at us. In the end, the air conditioner was broken, so the guys in the front opened their window for us which helped, although our driver was not as accommodating.
Journey to Bali.
Next thing we know, we’re pulling into a mechanic shop. Our driver says nothing to us. No communication whatsoever. At first I thought his english was not so good. We would all find out later that his english was near perfect. He was stopping to get the aircon fixed. I guess it was too much trouble to fix it before we started our all-day journey. He would have left us in there to melt, but Javier was already out, and while the rest of the van looked around at each other, I told Javier to drop the seat so I could get out- I wasn’t going to sit and melt. We found a place in the shade and tried to cool down while everyone else did the same. We waited for around 45 minutes. When we piled back in, the air was better, not good and definitely not great. While we wouldn’t stop sweating, maybe we could all sweat a little less. We stopped for lunch. Again, no communication. Our driver just got out and walked away. When we were done, we were on our way to the ferry stop. We really wanted to catch the ferry in time since it only leaves every hour. There was quite a bit of traffic, and our driver started to drive like he actually cared if we made it in time. Thankfully, we did. Once on the ferry, our driver turned into a Chatty-Cathy with his fluent english. He was organizing everyone’s transfer. Basically, he had taken so long, and we were still about 5 hours from our destination that we would all be arriving really late, and wouldn’t have any taxi/bus options- or so he said.
Ferry to Bali. Journey from Mount Bromo to Bali. OMG.
In all fairness, we would be arriving around midnight, and some people still had to travel 1-2 hours to their final destination. Javier and I only had about 30-45 minutes. We had planned to take a taxi. The driver was offering to take us to our hotel for 150,000 ringgit ($8), which we thought was a little steep. We didn’t say yes or no. We said we’ll think about it. We had planned to arrive at the bus station and see what our options were- assuming we were actually going to go to our final destination. Long story short, they guy coordinated pick-up locations with his many friends along the way. We were driving from the north-west of Bali, south. Many of the final destinations were in the northern area. So, to save the people time and money (so he said) he arranged for his friends to pick them up and transport them. What a scam.
In the end, there was only 4 of us left. Javier and I were watching where he was going on our maps. I told Javier, he’s not going to Despensar (our final stop), he’s going to the beach. He took it upon himself to drive us to our hotel. We ended up getting out early and walking the remainder two blocks on our own. The guy walked over to Javier and held our his hand for money. I told Javier, we never agreed on a price. He doesn’t get 150,000, 100,000 at most. Poor Javier. In these countries the men typically refuse to speak to me. They only deal with Javier, so poor guy has to be the one to not give them what they are asking for. It really puts him in an awkward position. But, since they don’t want to talk to me, what can I do?
We arrived at our hotel a little after 1am- only 5 hours late. Check-in is supposed to end at 10pm, but we made a last minute call to hotels.com and told them that while we were supposed to arrive by 8pm, we probably wouldn’t be there until after midnight. Our call was cut off right after the lady said she would take care of it, and placed me on hold to call the hotel directly. I have to say, we use hotels.com when we can because of their rewards nights, and most importantly, they have phenomenal customer service (and we have had to call them several times). But enough of that plug. They checked us in and upgraded us! Hooray! Our hotel didn’t look very nice online, but had great reviews and was super economical compared to others close by, so we decided to try it out for two nights, and quickly realized that we wanted to stay much longer.
Bali, Indonesia.
We set out in the morning to find breakfast. Javier had found a cafe that looked good, so we walked there and had our first good cup of coffee in Indonesia. It was delicious. So much so that we went back as often as we could even though our food repeatedly came with live little bugs. HA! Our standards have perhaps, dropped too low…
We spent the next two days looking for ways to get to Labuan Bajo. I had spent hours online researching different tours to see the Komodo dragons. There was so much information about how truly terrible the tours were. I read pages and pages of blogs, trip advisor reviews, and company websites. Just as I was starting to feel like it was a lost cause, I came across a thread. Someone had found a company with good trip advisor reviews. I decided to look up the company specifically. Everything checked out. It was still a gamble, but I ran it by Javier, and he knew how horrible some of these companies were from the stories I would tell him. He thought it looked good, plus they were having last-minutes deals, so we were able to book at a discount!
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Bali, Indonesia.
Real quick, I would like to tell you about some of the stories I read. One was a woman blogger who took the 4-day boat from Bali to Komodo. They were ship-wrecked, their life rafts were useless, and they had a tiny baby on board. Thankfully, they were somewhat close to shore and they had life vests. They had to leave their stuff on board. Once they were rescued, and transferred to the boat that would take them to…wherever, they were reunited with their belongings. They were so happy until they realized that they had been robbed. All of their stuff had been stolen, and the thieves had put Ritz crack tubes and coke cans in their place. The people that “rescued” them stole everything from them. Another woman told a story about how they had rats and roaches crawling over their faces and bodies while they slept at night on the boat. This story was actually repeated by several people from different experiences on different boats. You can see why I was having such a difficult time finding a company to go with. We can handle being uncomfortable, but rats on my face while I sleep. Hell-to-the-no!!
Kite runners
We had to secure a flight to Labuan Bajo, which took us all day. Literally, it took 6 hours for this process to be completed thanks to needing second and third party participation. We were trying to figure out a way to take a 2-day trek in Lombok, but it wasn’t really feasible. Once the flight was booked, we booked the tour. We had spent the first two days in Bali doing nothing but planning. It was really annoying, but necessary.
We decided to enjoy the sunset. We walked to and along the beach. It was crowded, but nice.
Kite pros.
We extended our stay at our hotel. Now that we had planned our next adventure, we needed to wrap up the details for our Australian road trip. So far, all we knew was that we were flying to Perth. We settled on a route and while Javier was planning other parts of our trip, I was weighing the options of camper van vs car. After pricing everything out, we opted for the car. A few weeks before, my friend Megumi had sent an email and asked where we would be in the middle of Sept. We knew we would be in Australia, but we weren’t sure where. Once we decided on a car, I started making a very loose itinerary. It is really difficult to plan an Australian road trip especially when you’re in Bali and would rather be enjoying the beach!
We figured out our timeframe for the first week and let Megumi know. As it turned out, her dates worked with ours. The only downside, she was joining us for quite possibly the longest and potentially most boring part of our journey thus far. We had some really cool sites planned, but there would also be a lot of driving. She was game and started looking for flights to Perth.
Soccer in Bali with the locals.
The next couple days were spent at the beach, pool, and walking around the town. Javier found a group of local guys playing soccer on the beach and joined in the game. We found a restaurant that was so incredibly good, we ate there for several of our meals. We also made friends with the ladies at the cheap, local food place where we also ate almost daily. Finally the day came to travel to Labuan Bajo. I guess we’d have to take time to enjoy Bali on our return. We hailed a taxi at 6am and made our way to the airport. I would like to say…the Bali domestic terminal is one of, if not the nicest, terminals in all of southeast asia.
Next stop, Labuan Bajo.
To see more pictures of Indonesia, click HERE.