Bali Nusa Dua / Jakarta
Bali airport is nice, small but not large.
Visa on arrival for over 100 countries (mostly European)
Getting a taxi from the airport to your hotel...
First things first you can get grab or uber but a warning if you do instead of a local taxi. Tell the uber driver to pick you up at departure drop off area. The reason being is that I found out form my uber driver that local taxi Drivers are having serious conflicts with uber and grab Drivers. So bad is the situation that a Taxi driver refused to leave my side and followed me everywhere around the airport arrival area when I told him I have booked uber with constant forced conversations such as, don't trust uber, the government doesn't allow uber, yesterday uber driver made an accident with a motorcycle, uber Drivers will cheat you and so forth. I had trouble locating my uber driver because once you leave the airport building the wifi stops working. Thank god that uber has a picture of the driver because I wouldn't have recognised him or found his car. I luckily did tell him to identity me by my army print baseball cap. The poor fellow came looking for me and when he identified me he waited for us to get eye contact, it was a simple head nod and a hushed hand gesture to follow him. Once in the car it took a good 5 mins for the uber driver to calm down (he was visibly scared by what the cab Drivers might do to him). As a single traveler, as I was, this can be frightening to some, especially in a country and city you've never been to. Never the less as I relax drinking some duty free whisky on my 5th floor balcony with a cool breeze, I reflect that my adventure into Bali has finally begun! Tomorrow is a new day and one that will start early because I've booked a boat to go fishing!
My first full day in Bali started off with the complimentary breakfast at ibis hotel at 630 am. They offer a wide verity of things to eat. Being filled up with breakfast my preplanned fishing trip awaited. After picking up my friend and Mother we headed of to Sanur beach to meet the person who would take us out to see. My god did that turn out to be a fiasco! The person I contacted made the wrong arrangements with her contact... he quoted her 185 per person to which she assumed it was was in rupia! When we reached he said it would be 555 USD!!! For 3 of us! Bloody outrageous!!! I know petrol prices have gone up but to ask 185 USD per person in Asia on a motor boat that looks like it's never been serviced is day light robbery...it seems to be be the theme in Bali... over charge by minimum 200%. Negotiations only got the price down to 135 USD for 6 hours. Let me tell you I've been fishing in malaysia and singapore for many years and that sort of price gets you either a full days trip (12 hours of fishing) or 2 days one night inclusive of transport/food and drinks to the fishing port! My god the people in Bali just seriously Want to rip you off and what's more they do it with a smile. We opted not to take that operator and decided to take a small local wooden boat. 3 of us managed to get it for 60$ total for 4 hours...we didn't catch any fish ! The only thing we did catch was plastic bags! A lot of plastic bags. The ocean there seems full of it. Once we got back to shore we had lunch on a beach side resort. I had a club sandwich with a small beer which cost about 15$... metropolitan prices... and after lunch I decided to stroll in the shallows of the ocean to at least see a fish even if it was tiny...zero absolute zero...Sanur seems void of fish... throughly fed up I decided to head back to my hotel doing the same song and dance trying to find my uber driver while avoiding taxi Drivers! Once onboard uber, I was asked if I wanted to go via the highway (pay a toll fee) or go via the "Long" way around... I opted for the "Long way" and funny enough it's not Long at all. Few minor traffic jams and I'm back at my hotel in roughly the same time it would have taken me to go the short way round. Absolutely tired by that point I downed a few shots of whiskey and passed out.
Early morning again to get my complimentary breakfast...and while munching away I talked to a few staff about fishing near and around my area...(no way I was going to go back to Sanur to fish ) to which I was directed to a cab driver who had a "Friend" who could organise a boat for me. Again prices quoted in USD....180... I politely said wow that's expensive no thank you (go to hell you rip off artist I said to myself in my head) to which he replied ok special price Usd 100... I replied I'd only pay 1 million rupia and was not giving dollars nor did I have any. I really wanted to catch fish in Bali and was hoping for the best .....so arrangements were made and off I went to Tanjung Benoa where my boat was waiting. Taxi driver charged me 40,000 rupia, 4$ for a 10 min drive. Half way there there was a checkpoint where locals where stopping cars and handing out tickets next to a big sign saying "illegal!! Banned!! Uber and grab!" Thank goodness I didn't take a uber there... could have been a nightmare for both me and the uber driver... once I reached my destination I was in the proverbial tourist trap. Loads of tourists being touted to go on all sorts of water sports activities like hanna boat, jet ski, parasailing and more... I was made to pay first then Wait 30 minutes for them to prepare the boat... once the boat was ready I was taken to it... old and poorly maintained like the one in Sanur... so off we went with me in high hopes.... the price included a few bottles on mineral water nothing else... I started trolling two rods once the captain (the only other person on the boat) put out his line..... we were doing the slowest troll ever... 1 or 2 knots and Low and behold for the next two hours I was busy reeling my line in every now and again to clear plastic bags from my lure...the captain couldn't be bothered to help.... after a while my Guess is the captain got hungry and also wanted save gas by stopping the boat and said you can try jigging here... ok I thought better than cleaning up Bali's ocean and so put a 180 gram jig on my line and let it drop.... a minute later my line is still going out and at a angle... the current was strong and the water was deep!!! I asked the Captain how deep is the water? He replied at least 100 meters and more...then casually took out his lunch (never offered any to me) and said you jig for a while I'm going to eat.... after letting out 200 yards jigging it back to the boat a few times I was exhausted!!! Hard work pulling in so much line!!! So I asked if the captain would take over and help jig while I rested...he just laughed and said no thank you..... we stayed at that spot for nearly a hour...Guess the captain wanted to dijest his food. I said I can't jig anymore! let's troll and try our luck again...which we did with same results (plastic bags) and half hour of untangling my two lines that got tangled because of bad boat driving and plastic bags...while that was happening, trolling and untangling lines the boat was pointing at the port we came from... no surprise we caught zero fish that day and after two days of fishing my conclusion is fishing Operators are not operating to help you fish but operating to fish your cash. There was no enthusiasm no real anything about fishing by those people.
Fully frustrated once I got back to shore I decided against doing the song and dance with uber or the local taxi Drivers... I decided I was going to walk back to my hotel!!
This decision to walk was by far the best I had taken in Bali. Firstly, up until my walk I felt as though I was being treated by the locals as a walking ATM machine that dispensed cash or a currency note and not as a person.. literally almost everyone is trying to squeeze out as much as they can from you be it the people on the beach, the taxi drives to even the fishing tour organisers...seriously felt violated and bewildered by why people had such wonderful things to say about Bali. For two days straight I was robbed blind by inflated prices, intimidated by local taxi Drivers for taking uber and so forth already mentioned. However there is always a silver lining. My walk took more than a hour to reach my hotel but by far it was the best experience I had in bali. While walking I got to see and interact with the real Bali and not just zoom by it in a taxi. I saw beautiful and unique architecture, stone carved walls, doors and idols. You get to see the real bali by walking past schools, houses, little Mom and pop shops along the road with real locals not trying to hustle a tourist. It was smiles and polite nods of the head all along the way. After about 45 minutes I walked upon a few souvenir shops where there were middle aged women sitting out side making and preparing little prayer basket offerings. Conversation soon followed by if I had caught any fish and general polite question of where I was from? How Long I've been there and so forth. I was a little guarded because of my last two days of being ripped off but that soon all washed away when the feeling of genuineness of the ladies showed through with their conversation with me. Feeling rested I asked where I could buy a beer and they directed me to a local provisions store where the patron and I also struck up a good conversation...I Guess he must have been watching me and asked if I caught any fish... zero was my reply and immediately he asked if I wanted to go fishing again because he has a Friend who goes fishing and he said he that he would call him to see if he was going tomorrow. Unfortunately I told him today was my last day and even if I wanted to go I was broke and didn't have the time. He politely asked how much I was charged on my trips to which he was shocked...he replied his friend would of helped book a boat for 500 rupia ($50) for a whole day's fishing 8 to 10 hours!!! I was cursing myself in my head that I should have taken my walk the first day. Hahaha. After finishing off my beer and heading to my hotel I decided I would head back to the ladies shop to buy some souvenirs for home and ended up buying a few items.
When traveling I always make it a point to eat where locals eat..why? Well because firstly the food is so much tastier and secondly it's at reasonable prices! So I asked the shop lady where I could eat, she knew immediately I wasn't taking about a restaurants that cater for tourists and told me to head around the corner down a ally and pointed to a takeaway bag filled with food saying " cheap, good, I also eat from there". 2 dishes and a small beer cost me $7.50. It was tasty and filling nothing compared to what I got at Sanur!! Half for double the amount!
Once back at my hotel and done packing for my trip to Jakarta i reflected on my time in Bali and a few thoughts crossed my mind. Not every trip goes well but this was exceptional in the case of cost (over priced everything! I like to haggle a bit but this was crazy) and the local conflict of cheaper reliable transportation those were the two worst highlights of the trip besides the dreadful fishing and plastic bags.
However if I do decide to ever go back to Bali it would be on a much longer duration. You are given 1 month visa and I strongly advise to use as much of it as possible for in my last day I truly got to meet some nice locals that which I feel is what Bali truly is about. The longer you stay the more you'll meet people like them and the more you become a familiar face to those that try to overcharge you.. In short Bali is a beautiful place that just needs time to be explored to find the best that it truly has to offer.
