KUTA
Trip Start
Jan 02, 2007
1
11
56
Trip End
Apr 09, 2007
BALI,
Indonesia
Thursday, January 18, 2007
BALI (KUTA)
I checked out of Un's hotel about 11am and went off to have some brekkie and find myself a car to get me to Ubud, a small town an hour or so north of Kuta. I had sussed out a few car hire places the night before and was happy enough with the deal they offered me in the first one - ended up with a big seven seater Toyota for US$20 a day.
They've got this one-way system around the main strip and beach area in Kuta and in order to get back to the hotel to pick up my luggage I had to do a big loop of the town even though the hotel wasn't very far away. Generally I'd have had no issues with that but I had a couple of slight hiccups on the journey:
Firstly, somebody decided to dig up loads of roads that day so there was all sorts of diversions down little small laneways and due to heavy traffic, a journey that would normally take no more than 10 minutes was taking well over half an hour. OK, being on holidays and in no major rush to get anywhere this was only a minor issue.
WAS only a minor issue - It wasn't long becoming a major one! When I picked up the car, the guy told me it was empty and gave me directions to the petrol station. When he said 'empty' I didn't think he meant it was actually EMPTY! I had been crawling along for about 15 mins and was diverted down this little laneway only wide enough for one car when the engine cut out. Now everyone sitting in the heavy traffic in thirty-something degrees was pretty stressed already before this dude with a big pink sunburned head decided to stop his car in the middle of a street with no room to pass and no way to turn. Let's just say it all got a bit mental! Horns started blowing, I started panicing, my blood pressure rose to the point that my head was about to expolde and I was pumping out about a litre of sweat per minute! The whole town had come to a complete standstill. To make matters worse my phone wasn't working and I had no way of ringing the hire company. I eventually got someone to ring them and a while later this guy arrived on a moped with a coke bottle of petrol. VERY stressful experience!
The road to my hotel was a tiny laneway off the main road and with all the panic of the breakdown, I missed the turn and had to do the whole f**king loop again - AAAAAAARGH!!!!
Having collected my luggage, I eventually got on the road and set off for Ubud a few hours later than originally planned.
Kuta was definitely one of those places that looks it's best in the rear view mirror!
