Bali, the first time around
Trip Start
Mar 19, 2008
1
23
31
Trip End
Jun 05, 2008
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Padang Bai, Bali,
Indonesia
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Kuta is Australian's Ibiza, or so we heard. But I'd say it's more like Benidorm. I expected mayhem and lager-lager-lager tpye antics but it was actually quite quiet. This may have been because Australians are an altogether more cultured spiecies, or it may have something to do with a big and horrible bomb that killed over 200 people here in 2005. I think it's mainly to do with it being fairly low-season though.
Kuta is a collection of expensive boutiques as far as we could see. It has a long golden beach with a lot of good surfing (which I thought most of Australia had too) and great weather (ditto) but beyond that is just boutiques and fairly expensive bars. I'm not sure what the Australian attraction is. It may be the fabulously nice people, which Bali has in spades. We decided to get out of Kuta and see the rest of Bali before we moved on.
Bali island is a big and very beautiful place. It's peppered with giant volcanic peaks and is home to more exquisite wood carvers then I've ever seen - workshops line the lush country roads. We saw most of this on a bus from Kuta to Padang Bai (a port town that we'd be getting our onward boat from) and while we stopped in the town of Ubud after our bus broke down.
Padang Bai is mainly quaint. It's a little town in a little bay with big ferrys that go to Lombok. We didn't do much more than take a walk over a hill and eat. Although, once we discovered there were no ATM's at our next location, muggins here had to take a fairly scary ride on the back of a motorbike through winding roads at 100 mph to withdraw cash. Indonesian currency being very inflated, there's a real satisfaction in getting 5 million worth of currency out of the ATM - until you drop it, like I did.
So we boarded our slow boat and set off on a 6 hour ride to the Gili island's - 3 little specks of tropical beaches in pristine water. Time to settle for a while, stay off buses and planes and just kick back.
