Sanur, Bali, Indonesia
We were up early and on our way to the airport by 6:15 am. We are still learning every time we travel and today is a great example of this.
Our flight from Langkawi to KL was at 7:30 am. Then at KL we had a 12 hour lay over before our connecting flight to Bali. We had booked the flights like this because they were the cheapest ones we could find. With hindsight we should have booked one of the later flights to KL, spent a little bit more money and kept our time in KL airport down to a minimum. We saved about £10 each by getting the earlier flight from Langkawi, but then with 12 hours to kill in KL we needed to eat, drank coffee etc. We probably spent close to that just sitting in the airport so we most likely didn’t save much at all. Next time we will make a better judgement call when it comes to things like this.
So, weary and bleary eyed we eventually touched down in Bali at around 11:30 pm local time. We expected the airport to be quiet at this time, with not many flights coming in or leaving this late in the day. We were wrong. Ngurah Rai airport was chaos. People everywhere.
Arriving in Bali will most likely be the worst part of your visit here. Don’t let that first impression ruin your perception of this beautiful island.
We were fortunate that we already had a two month Visa that we had obtained at the Indonesian Embassy in Bangkok a month ago. That made immigration relatively easy. Customs however is a terrible process at Ngurah Rai airport. You have to fill out a small declaration sheet. 600 people arriving at once from 3 flights, fighting over pens at two tiny desks is not what you want when you first arrive here. Why don’t they hand out these sheets on the planes prior to landing?
With your sheet filled out you then stand in line and hand it over at the customs check point. Customs don’t even look at this sheet and simply take it from you and wave you through! It’s a pointless exercise from what I can tell. They need to change this.
Once through the checks and into the Airport it’s a mad scramble to the ATM’s to get your hands on some currency. The ATM’s at the airport are fine. No rip off exchange rate, at least for us using our Starling Bank account. We got a genuine rate and no ATM fees whatsoever.
Now began the tricky task of negotiating a taxi fare to our digs. This is the worst part of the process. There are thousands of drivers here all happy to fleece you with over-priced fares. It should cost about 100k-120k Rupiah to go from the airport to Sanur on the East cost, about £6-£7. Most of the drivers were demanding 300k-400k. It’s a captive audience for them. So many people arriving and needing transport that most of them wont haggle with you. They just bide their time and wait for the first people that don’t bother to haggle and pay the first asking price.
We must have spent half an hour wandering about being quoted silly amounts until eventually Dani found some old guy in the car park who would take us for 170k. With time getting on we didn’t haggle any further and accepted the offer.
Half an hour later we arrived at Di Kubu Homestay in Sanur. It was about 1:45 am now and we were shattered. Eventually we found the owner, asleep upstairs. We felt bad disturbing him but he was very cool and kindly and thankfully let us into our room. Sleep.
So with all the usual hassles of first arriving in Bali out of the way we were able to settle. Don’t let any of this put you off coming here. It can be a bit of a pain when you first arrive but once that’s out of the way you will have an amazing time here.
After working at the shelter for a few weeks we gladly enjoyed some easy going chill time around Sanur. Sanur is on the East coast of Bali and is certainly more relaxed and sedate than Kuta on the West. It’s beach is very quiet and we spent 5 days there just relaxing. Reading books, doing some sketches and generally taking it easy and settling in.
Sanur has a great night market for food so we popped along there to take in some tasty treats and also checked out a few Warung’s near to where we are staying.
Di Kubu Homestay is set back from the main coast road among a labyrinth of small alleys and streets. It’s a great place to find good cheap accommodation as well as some amazing cheap food as well. We didn’t have to venture very far most nights to get a great cheap meal. Breakfast was included with our room at Di Kubu, which for £10 a night for the two of us with aircon is a pretty decent deal. We generally live off two meals a day when we are in Asia so with breakfast already sorted this made for some very cheap days during our first week.
After 5 days relaxing we were getting restless and ready to move on for some more adventure. We looked into renting a scooter and doing some island hopping using the cheap public ferries here. Lombok isn’t too far to the East of Bali then past Lombok is Sumbawa followed by Flores. It sounds and looks interesting from what we have read so we may do that. We have also looked at heading West as well and catching the short ferry ride over to Java. Java looks incredible with so much to go and see and explore. Having the scooter will allow us to do that. We love the freedom of being able to go were we please and get off the beaten track.
Last time we were in Sanur we also stayed at Di Kubu and rented a scooter for a month from a family round the corner. The family are still at the same place so we called in to ask about renting from them again. This was about 3 years ago and amazingly the lady still remembered us and knew it as 3 years ago! Amazing. I don’t know how these people remember you so well, they must see hundreds if not thousands of tourists every year but sure enough when we called in she recognised us immediately.
We didn’t have to provide any ID at all for her with her remembering us from last time and obviously the last time we rented a scooter here we looked after it for her so she was more than happy to let us take one again. It didn’t take a lot of haggling either to get a really good price. £2.04 a day is all that it is costing us. Here you can fill your tank for about £1.20 so we are in for some pretty cheap traveling around Indonesia.
We are really looking forward to it so much. The family at Di Kubu are kindly looking after our big back-packs for a few weeks so all we have with us now for the next 6 weeks or so is our 2 small day packs with some essentials thrown in.
Just like our camper van trip round Canada and our epic motor bike trip from Hanoi to Saigon a few years ago, we love having this kind of freedom and it always gives us the greatest sense of adventure.
We have headed off North on our first day to Ubud in the heart of Bali and from there we will decide where we want to head next. Either East catching the public ferries to Lombok, then Sumbawa and maybe Flores or West and into Java. Either way I’m sure a great adventure lies ahead.
