Ubud - Bali
Trip Start
Aug 31, 2008
1
12
47
Trip End
Apr 30, 2009
Ubud,
Bali,
Indonesia
Thursday, November 6, 2008
We were quite surprised by how nice his home compound was and the room he showed us was actually a complete bungalow with a large porch in front of it. The room included only cold water but had a large fan on the roof and windows with screens in them. It didn't take us long to decide that we would stay there. I was looking forward to relaxing on the porch with my laptop reading the photography books I had just downloaded. The rest of the rooms at Tunjung Bungalows were attractive looking, but some of them were on a second floor and did not have their own porches. I think our hesitation of coming to this place paid off because our room seemed to be the best (and definitely the most private.)
Soon after dropping off our bags, we ventured out to look for some lunch. We walked in a random direction that took us directly to the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary which is on one of the main roads of Ubud. There were quite a few macaques that had left the park and were hanging out in front of it. We didn't bother with pictures because we knew we would be going to this park another day.
The walk down Monkey Forest road took us past quite a number of restaurants, massage parlors and art boutiques. The prices were somewhat higher than they had been in Kuta, but with a little looking around we found a nice place on the 2nd floor of a building with decent pricing. I ordered a Balinese specialty dish that was rice with a side of spinach and grated coconut. Lisa ordered a spaghetti dish and we enjoyed a tranquil meal looking down Monkey Forest Road watching the tourists walk by. Lisa's dish was 15,000 Rp and mine was 10,000 Rp but for the first time in Indonesia, there was a 10% tax added to the bill. I thoroughly enjoyed my dish and plan to sample it again soon from different restaurants.
We spent the day wandering the streets of Ubud and reading through the guide books trying to figure out what we should do for our stay. The taxi touts were ever present, as they were in Kuta, but aside from the odd calling for "massage?", we were able to walk the streets in peace. This was a refreshing change from Kuta where window shopping was nearly impossible. Most of the streets of Ubud are lined with stores selling art, clothing, jewelry and other souvenirs with lots of restaurants and massage parlors and spas in between. The prices seemed to be slightly higher than they were in Java, but we knew to expect that on the island of Bali since most things need to imported here from Java.
We were surprised to see so many restaurants in Ubud that offered free wireless Internet with a meal. Lisa and I brought the laptop with us for dinner at a restaurant called Café Dewata and were happy to find that there was an unprotected Internet connection that we could use from there. I think it was for a café next door, but it isn't like anybody could tell what we were doing on the laptop. I ordered another Balinese dish called Koloke (chicken balls, sweet & sour sauce, with pineapple) and Lisa ordered Balinese fried noodles. I was actually hoping to get a pizza but we were too late and they were not able to make me one. When the bill came, there was a 10% tax added on to the tally again. I guess this is a standard practice in Ubud even though everywhere else we had been in Indonesia included taxes in their price.
Sleeping in the bungalow was really nice compared to where we had been for the past several weeks. Although there was no air-conditioning, we actually did not need it this night. It was the first time in at least three weeks that I needed to use a blanket. It was also nice to have a soft double bed with a useful pillow all to myself. However the wildlife of Ubud seemed to want to party on our roof and this got Lisa a little scared. It was not long before Lisa ditched her bed and crawled into mine. I'm glad that this room has two doubles and not two twin sized beds.
The next morning we woke up and came out to our porch to see what the free breakfast entailed. We were not expecting much and were surprised when the woman of the household brought out a plate with chocolate banana pancakes and a large fruit salad. We were also offered tea or coffee and ended up having two cups of coffee each. The coffee was quite strong (how I like it) and unstrained as it always seems to be in Indonesia. The grinds are so fine that it doesn't really bother me to drink a few, but you should never drink the last sip of coffee here.
After breakfast, we decided to go on a hike through the country side. The Lonely Planet outlined several suggested hikes and we chose one they referred to as "The Campuan Ridge" walk. We had to hike about one kilometer to where the official hike began, which was another seven kilometers in total. The walk started in a deep ridge but quickly rose to take us through the middle of some farmland where we could see rice cultivation everywhere. I was surprised to see that even the ridge walls that approached a 70 degree pitch were used for growing rice, without terraces in some places.
It was a hot, humid and sunny day and after walking for about a kilometer in the rice fields, without any shade, we were both quite sweaty. It was around this time that a local farmer appeared from nowhere with two coconuts in his hands. He quickly cut one open and offered it to Lisa as a drink. Knowing that I am not a big fan of coconut milk, I tried to stop him from opening the second one but he did not listen to my concerns. Not wanting to seem rude, I did my best to drink the milk of the second one and I noticed that Lisa was mostly pouring hers on the ground to try and get rid of it.
After the milk was gone, he cut off a few pieces of the coconut fruit which we tried. I do enjoy dried coconut, but the fresh stuff is not nearly as tasty to me. Lisa didn't really care for it either, but we didn't want to seem rude and both tried to eat a little. We offered to pay him 5,000 Rp for what we had and that is when he told us that they cost 15,000 Rp each. Knowing that our dinners did not cost that much and that neither of us even wanted it, there was no way we were going to pay him 30,000 Rp. Lisa simply left the 5,000 on the ground and we walked away. He did not follow us or hassle us after that.
We walked for another kilometer or so through the rice fields before the path turned into a road going through a village. Even out here in the country, nearly every house had a store front selling art. It felt like we were in the countryside except for that aspect. We followed the road and eventually it became a paved road lined with terraced rice paddies with farmers tending to them. By this time it was lunch but we didn't find any restaurants on the road side, just dozens of art boutiques and the odd informal convenience store.
We turned down an unmarked road, as the Lonely Planet guide told us to, and crossed a second river valley. The vegetation in these valleys is very lush and provided shade from the sun but soon we were back on main road heading back to the town of Ubud. It was almost downhill fortunately and there were plenty of stores to buy water, pop and beer. The journey ended at the same place where it began but before we went home we decided to have lunch. We used the Lonely Planet guide again to find a cheap restaurant that was close to our path home named Dewa Warang.
Dewa Warang was a small place tucked down a little alley, but quite a popular place with the foreign crowd. We found two of the last seats available and were refreshed to see a menu with pricing similar to what we had found in Kuta. The fresh fruit juices were all 5,000 Rp and dishes ranged from 8,000 Rp to 15,000 Rp. I ordered the Cashew Ginger Chicken, which was served with rice and a lot of green beans for 15,000 Rp. I also tried an avocado juice, which was more like a smoothie and tasted how it sounds. I love avocado, but I'll probably stick to papaya, banana and pineapple in the future. Lisa ordered a Nasi Goreng Special, which is a standard Indonesian dish and cost 10,000 Rp here.
The next morning we woke up early to beat the day-trip tourists from Kuta to visit the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary. The admission is 15,000 Rp for adults and it was only about a five minute walk from where we are staying. The forest is filled with really lush vegetation and trees that look hundreds of years old. There is barely any sunlight that gets through the canopy because it is so thick. As the name suggests, this forest contains hundreds of grey-bearded macaque monkeys. The Lonely Planet guide made them sound like naughty monkeys and warned you to never feed them directly, but there was people selling little bananas for them at the park entrance and in the park itself.
Our plan of arriving early turned out to be a wise choice. There were very few people in the park and the monkeys were all very interested in us. Although we didn't bring any food for them, they still jumped up on us to investigate us closely. There were several park attendants that ensured that the monkeys wouldn't get too aggressive and they told us to just keep walking if you wanted the monkeys to jump off. At one point I had three of them on me, trying to rip the tag off of the back of my t-shirt apparently. Having three of them on me made me a little nervous and they didn't jump off when I walked away. However they didn't do anything to me other than just climb all over me and investigated my backpack and shirt label.
One of the most interesting things that we saw in the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary was a monkey with a pet kitten. The young monkey was grooming and petting the kitten, much like a person would. The monkey did not let the kitten leave, although the kitten seemed content enough to be raised by the monkey anyhow. We have no idea where the kitten came from but the monkey carried it with him wherever he went. We got the whole thing on video but I didn't get many great pictures of the event before the monkey carried his kitten off into the depths of the forest.
There are three ancient temples in the sanctuary and we visited all three. Most were gated off and you are not supposed to enter them if you are no wearing a traditional Hindu sarong anyhow. The most interesting one had statues of monsters eating children outside of it and sort of looked like it was from an Indian Jones movie. This one was close to the cemetery where they bury people that are waiting for cremation, so I assume it is related to death. Although rich people can afford to have their own cremation ceremonies only a few days after death, normal people get buried and then dug up again for a communal cremation ceremony that occurs every five years or so.
We spent hours sitting with the monkeys watching them jump on people and scaring the wits out of them. By noon there were plenty of the day-trip tourists from other parts of the island and it was a little bit on the crowded side. I had already taken almost 300 pictures at this point because I was worried that they would not be turning out so great with the low light conditions. At noon the sun was high and I could find monkeys in the sun-light, so I guess coming to this park later has its advantages too. By 12:30 Lisa and I were hungry and thirsty, so we decided it was time to go.
After lunch, we returned to our bungalow to sort through the pictures, watch TV, read books, relax and nap. Ubud is a great place to do all of these things and it is a hard place to feel stressed out or rushed. In Toronto I average less than six hours of sleep in a night, but in Ubud I am sleeping nearly ten hours a night and still finding time to nap in the afternoon. We watch the family in our home-stay making offerings around their family compound several times a day. This is a very spiritual place and that seems to wear off even to us. The people here seem way more interested in the spiritual aspects of life than the consumer oriented capitalism that is bred into us in Canada.
The family that we are staying with while in Ubud has been very helpful in finding us things to keep us entertained. The woman of the house brought out some postcards of the sites around Bali and told us how we could get to them all from a motorbike. She also explained that we could rent a motorbike from them for only 40,000 Rp a day. I know that you are supposed to have an International Driving License to legally drive these in Indonesia, but we rented one for a day anyhow.
We rented a rather new looking 4 stroke moped that could easily carry Lisa and I around the island. At first I was paranoid by the fact that I was not licensed to drive in Bali and remembered the story we heard from the American surfers in Jakarta about how they were caught (and had to bribe the police officer) three times during their stay in Bali. I prepared for this by giving Lisa almost all of the money from my wallet, so the officer wouldn't think he could get lots out of me if I had to do my own bribery.
Within five minutes of driving around, we passed by a police officer that pulled over a bike driver in front of me that wasn't wearing a helmet. Both Lisa and I were wearing helmets, but I was still worried that they would target foreigners as a source of supplementing their personal incomes. We drove around for another fifteen minutes or so before pulling over to look at a map. I saw two policemen driving up to us and though "oh no", but they only spoke with us to offer their assistance. Of course with no set destination in mind, we didn't really need any help so they drove off again.
Eventually we pulled down a small road and started to explore the Bali countryside. There were no other tourists around and the locals all looked at us as we drove by. Any children that saw us would always wave and put on a show if we had our camera out. It was really a refreshing change to see how friendly the people in the countryside are, because in Kuta people only seemed to speak with us for one reason: to extract money in any way that they could. Ubud wasn't as bad this way, but the countryside was a totally different experience as people seemed genuinely intrigued by us and were as friendly as they could be.
After exploring the south-east corner of Bali for a few hours, we saw storm clouds coming in and decided to head back to Ubud for lunch. I filled up the gas tank, which had depleted from ¾ to around ½ full for a cost of 23,000 Rp. We had lunch at Dewa Warang, our favorite inexpensive places for some Cashew Ginger Chicken and a dish called Nasi Kampur (which is a variety of dishes including spinach with shredded coconut, rice, fried chicken, and tempeh & tofu prepared in several different ways) for 10,000 Rp. We also figured out that the coconut pie was absolutely delicious and quite inexpensive at 5,000 Rp a slice. This restaurant also makes great fruit juices (like smoothies) for the best price in Ubud at 5,000 Rp.
After this we set out again to explore the north end of the island of Bali. I hit one of the main roads and traveled at 60-80 km/h for around an hour but only made it to the middle of the island before some seriously dark clouds were ahead of us. It also started to rain gently so Lisa wanted to turn around rather than try to make it to the north shore. I turned around and was able to keep ahead of the storm clouds so that we didn't get wet. We still had lots of gas left though, so I kept going south to drive around the south-west corner of the island.
By around 16:00 both of our bums were starting to get sore and I had finally used up the gas tank to where it was ¾ full again, so we decided to head back to our bungalow. Soon after getting back, I went to the variety store to grab us some large Bali Hai beers (15,000 Rp each) and we relaxed on our porch drinking beer until dinner time. Although we could've driven the bike for dinner, I had beer, no proper driver's license and it was dark out now, so we opted to return the bike and walk to the restaurant for dinner instead. We spent around 5 hours traveling on the bike and must've covered at least 100 kilometers for a total cost of 63,000 Rp. The price of fuel in Indonesia is subsidized by the government but I was still amazed at how efficient the bike was on gas and how inexpensive it was to rent one for a day.
The next big event in Ubud for us was a cremation ceremony that was held on Oct 31, 2008. Apparently a rich and powerful woman had died three days earlier and she could afford to have a lavish cremation without waiting for the communal one that happens approximately every five years. The owners of the Tunjung Bungalows told us that it would start at noon at the Ubud palace and there would be a procession that walked approximately one kilometer to the cemetery where the cremation would occur. They mentioned afterwards that a ceremony like this cost around 200,000,000 Rp but that a local King had died a month earlier and had an even more glorious cremation.
We walked to palace and there was already a large crowd of people waiting for the cremation to begin. There were plenty of locals selling stuff and asking us every 30 seconds or so if we wanted to buy what they were selling. Considering that were sitting directly across from the market, I wondered why people would be sitting at a cremation ceremony instead of browsing at the market if they were interested in shopping, but in Indonesia everybody is always trying to make a buck. Plenty of the tourists were wearing sarongs that the salespeople were selling, but Lisa and I decided to wait until later if we needed to buy one ourselves. There were so many tourists wandering around with professional series camera and lenses that I wondered if people came from all over the island to watch this. We were just lucky to be in town on the right day.
The ceremony began with some music and then around 25 people picked up the large bull that resembled a parade float and ran with it about 10 meters before letting it down on the road. After this dozens of women lined up in front of it caring packages of offerings on their heads. Behind the cow there was a line consisting of a fire truck (for safety purposes) and then a band playing gongs, cymbals, xylophones, bells and other traditional instruments. Finally at the end of the procession was an enormous ceremonial tower with stairs leading up to it. It stood about 10 meters high and they actually had to disconnect the power cables running across the street to accommodate its movement down the street. The body of the deceased rested at the top of this tower as the procession moved down the street.
The procession continued running down the street in short spurts and stopping intermittently for reasons I did not understand (I didn't really understand anything that was going on though.) The fire truck turned on a generator and sprayed the men carrying the bull about half way through. I am not sure if this was part of the ceremony or simply because they were very hot from carrying such a large and heavy object. By the time everybody reached the cemetery over an hour had passed by, so rather than joining everybody to watch the cremation, I opted instead to head to the store and grab a beer.
Lisa bought a sarong (15,000 Rp with hard bargaining) and joined the procession inside the cemetery. The body was carried from the top of the tower, passed around the bull three times and then the top of the bull's body was split open and the body was placed inside of it. A picture of the woman was also taken from near the top of the tower and carried by some living relatives as they all placed offerings inside of the bull's body. Several types of liquids (scented oils perhaps) were splashed on the dead woman's body inside of the bull as well. There were several dozen women with offerings so this took over an hour before everybody was done. Shortly after this the bull was set ablaze and the ceremony ended thereafter.
As I was waiting for Lisa, I found a place that had decent computers and offered Internet services for 5,000 Rp/hour. We had seen places charging 3-4X this amount in Ubud, so I figured this would be a good way to pass time until the ceremony ended. Alas this place must be the best deal in Ubud because it was filled to capacity with young locals. Instead I ended up drinking beers outside of the cemetery chatting with local people that would stop to chat on their way by. Most people simply wanted to sell me stuff but other people stopped just to chat and find out where I am from and how I liked Bali.
After I had finished my beer I headed up see if I could find Lisa, but stopped to buy a sarong along the way just in case I wanted to go in. I didn't know that Lisa had managed to buy one for 15,000 Rp and thought that I had done well with 30,000 Rp. It turns out that a lot of people in the cemetery, including some local Indonesians, were not wearing sarongs anyhow. I know they are required for entry to temples, but I guess they are not required for cemeteries. Lisa happened to be leaving just as I got there anyhow, so we headed to a Chinese restaurant for some lunch.
The Chinese restaurant had no electricity available, due to the funeral procession, so it was rather hot and sticky inside. They were able to get us a cold drink poured over ice though, so we were happy for that. The Chinese place was not nearly as good as Dewa Warong though, although the prices were similarly low at least. After lunch, we headed back to the Tunjung bungalow to relax. For dinner we returned to the Dewa Warung for some of our favorite dishes (Nasi Kampur and spaghetti) and talked with some other travelers. One older woman had a .RAR file which she didn't know what to do with, but with my laptop I was able to help her out. After dinner we went to another restaurant that offered wireless Internet at 5,000 Rp an hour and ordered a pot of tea. Unfortunately this restaurant closed at 21:00, so I only got about 30 minutes of Internet time in and drank a full pot of tea. I did not fall asleep last night until nearly 4:00 so I was a bit of a late riser today.
We woke up today and Lisa noticed that a rash on her chest had been getting progressively worse. It was bad enough now that the woman of the household noticed it and asked her what was wrong. She advised her to go to the pharmacy to see if they could give her appropriate medication. Lisa walked to the pharmacy, but they told her to go next door to a doctor first. It turns out that this was a doctor's office for the local population and there was a separate one for tourists on the other side of town, but the cost of the visit was only 100,000 Rp compared to the 800,000 Rp it would've been at the tourist's place. Considering that the doctor spoke excellent English and prescribed Lisa the same drugs that she would've likely got at the tourist's place, we felt lucky to have saved 700,000 Rp.
Next on the agenda was laundry and Internet, so we walked back to the other side of town where we had seen cheap laundry services and the cheapest Internet right next door. On our way there, on the same street that Tunjung is situated on (Jalan Sugriwa Padang Tegal), we found a new restaurant that was both cheap and wonderful. It is called Ijolumut Warang and this place felt like a gourmet restaurant compared to the other places we had been going to. I ordered an omelet for 6,000 Rp and Lisa got Nasi Goreng (fried noodles) for 9,500 Rp. We also got two banana juices for 5,500 Rp/each and I go a "Star Trek" banana-pancake and ice-cream dessert for 6,000 Rp. The meals were all exceptionally delicious and meticulously served in a fancy design. I have been taking many pictures of the various meals that we have eaten on our travels, but unfortunately I was charging the camera and missed this one. We plan on going back to this place again very soon though so next time I will remember to bring the camera along.
We took our laundry into a place that charged 9,000 Rp for 10 pieces of clothing and we only had around ten pieces that needed cleaning by machine (since we have been hand-washing the easier articles frequently.) The girls at the counter told us they would be ready for 15:00 today. Since it was already 14:00, we found this hard to believe but they repeated "today" and "not tomorrow." This was rather convenient, even if it was rather impossible, because we planned on using the Internet next door for an hour anyhow. These computers had Skype already loaded, so I didn't even bother using my laptop. After talking to folks back home for an hour and scoping out cheap air tickets for our upcoming journeys, we headed out to grab our laundry. The girls laughed and then we realized their English wasn't quite perfect and really they meant 15:00 tomorrow.
The next day when we returned to pick up our laundry for 15:00, it still wasn't ready so they told us to come back the following day. However we took the opportunity to restock on bottled water and other supplies from the grocery store and spent another hour using the cheapest Internet in town. We had decided to wait around in Ubud until Lisa's skin infection had cleared up, so it wasn't a big deal to have to return for the laundry a third time in as many days. We were concerned that we wouldn't be able to find quality doctors or pharmacies in Lombok, especially the Gili islands), so it made sense to wait around Ubud to ensure Lisa was getting better.
The walk down Jalan Sugriwa Padang Tegal took us directly past the Ijolumut Warang that we had recently discovered, so we tried out some more of their dishes. I ordered the special advertised at the front which was "Nasi Kampur and Iced Tea" for 13,000 Rp. I am sad to report that this meal was not nearly as delicious as it was at the Dewa Warang. It was rice, coleslaw, a little bit of tempeh and tofu, and the boniest piece of chicken that I have had in my life. Lisa's meal was excellent again though, so I can still recommend this restaurant with the exception of the Nasi Kampur (since it is so delicious at Dewa Warang.)
Lisa's birthday was the next big event to hit us while we were in Ubud. We spent the day much like any other, but I went shopping through some of the jewelry stores to find Lisa some earrings to replace the ones she brought along with her (a previous year's birthday present). It turned out that the grocery store, which had several independent stalls in front of it, had the best marked prices in town. Since I am not good with haggling at prices (nor do I enjoy it), I figured this was the best place to shop. I found some nice silver earrings at a cost of 120,000 Rp. I would bet that these same earrings would've cost around 4X this price at home (in Toronto) because they were actually quite heavy.
We had been carrying with us a beach-ball with the Canadian flag on it since we had left for our trip nearly two months ago. Today Lisa decided that she wanted to give the ball away to the little girl that lived at the home-stay where we were staying. The family had two children: a boy of six and a little girl was four years old. The little boy had awakened us nearly every morning with his crying and temper-tantrums. The little girl on the other hand ran around the house all day smiling and laughing. The mother had mentioned that she was lazy and liked to sleep until 10:00, much like me. It made the little girl SO happy to get this ball and she carried it around with her everywhere until we left. Lisa said this was about the best birthday present she could've got.
Lisa was in the mood for a beer, so we spent most of the day on our porch enjoying cold Bali Hais. We ended up having four 620 ml. bottles each which made the afternoon pass by very quickly. We met two young Swedish women that were staying in the room across from our bungalow and they joined us on our porch before we all decided to go for dinner. They were both vegetarians and recommended a place called Kafe Ubud on Jalan Hanoman which used only organic ingredients in their dishes. We were already very familiar with this place, since they had an unsecured Internet connection that was actually faster than the ones we had paid for at several other places. It was also a very popular place with foreign travelers, so we figured it was a good place to celebrate Lisa's birthday.
The dishes here were more expensive than other restaurants that we had gone to, with nachos costing 43,000 Rp but the food was definitely of a higher quality as well. I had a delicious large bowl of vegetarian chili (22,000 Rp), while Lisa had cheese quesadillas (20,000 Rp) that were good but not a large portion. This place charged 15% on top of the prices (10% tax, 5% gratuity) and I tipped another 10,000 Rp in addition to that since I had used their Internet so frequently. The Swedish girls ordered salads, which were both absolutely enormous. They both seemed full after eating only a salad for dinner, although one of the girls had salmon on her salad.
The day before we left, Lisa and I walked back to the pharmacy to restock some of the medicine that she had run low on. Right beside the pharmacy (and the local's doctor office) there was an ancient banyan tree that had special cultural purposes. The woman at our hostel explained how there was an old bell that was actually made of wood that was used by the royalty to mark special occasions. I tried to take pictures of this wooden bell, but it was enclosed in a building at least 10 meters up the huge banyan tree, so I could not see it. We were actually no longer in the original town of Ubud, but instead in a neighboring village which had been swallowed up by Ubud since the tourism boom. The tree was surrounded by fresh offerings, so I suspect that tree still has significant meaning today.
After restocking on medication, Lisa figured she was safe to travel again, so we booked a bus ticket to Padangbai through the Tunjung Bungalows where we were staying. They had the cheapest prices that we had noticed at 50,000 Rp per person. The owners reminded us that there was a family wedding on the weekend (4 nights from when we wanted to go) and that we were invited to attend. Although I loved the idea of taking pictures for a local wedding ceremony, I had no idea about local customs and did not want to do anything inappropriate to ruin their special day, so we made up an excuse about having to move on for other commitments. I also explained that we had only intended to stay in Ubud two or three nights, and thanks to their warm hospitality had spent ten nights there instead.
We woke up the following morning and got ready for our 11:00 bus ride to Padangbai. The woman of the house prepared us breakfast and also a bag full of fruit to take with us on our journey. Most of the fruit was the standard fruits we were familiar with, but there was one fruit that I had never seen before. We asked and found it was called "snake fruit". The name was actually pretty self-explanatory when you look at the skin of this fruit. Unfortunately I have not yet tasted this fruit, so I cannot comment on if it tastes like snake as well.
The bus was actually a minivan and it arrived at our hotel around 11:10 with no other passengers on board. We drove straight to Padangbai with the whole minivan to ourselves. There was comfortable seating for at last 3 more people, but I guess it was not a busy day for them. We had driven most of the route that we followed on the motorbike a week earlier, so the trip was pretty uneventful. The only real event was when the bus driver stopped and directed us to another minivan (whom he said was a friend of his) that would take us the rest of the way to Padangbai. After Lisa asked about our ticket, he made a quick phone call, and then said he would take us the rest of the way himself. I am not sure if this was an attempt to get us to pay twice or not, but we were only about a five minute ride from Padangbai at this point.
Comments
70,000?
Hello
Thanks for this blog
Could you please provide with more details of your homestay. I'm looking to find a homestay between that same price range you mentioned 70,000-80,000 IDR