Hi Readers,
I've promised you the long journey a while ago but this means postponing Paris 4 for at least another post.
So be it, let me do this before I forget.
The Bali trip was not romantic, it was opportunistic.
We finished our business in Bogor, Indonesia within two days instead of the anticipated 5. Upon checking back back with the office, we were told that it would be cheaper to stay out the period in Indonesia than to change our el cheapo flights.
There we were: In Indonesia but not in the best part. As you can see from the pics our hosts tried to ammuse us but after discussion with my colleague (he suggested we fly down to Bali and pay for that return flight ourselves), we decided we'll probably never see Bali unless we took hold of the opportunity right there and then!
So we ended up at Denpassar Airport and it was the most unsettling landing I've ever experienced. I have a habit of peering out the windows when landing. I stuck to my habit and was surprised not to see anything but turquaise blue seawater ... and the undercarraige had already been lowered!! Not having checked the airport layout online, I was unaware that the landing strip at Denpassar extends well into the sea. I started panicking as we sand lower and lower. I kept my pose but my colleague started noticing my fidjety discomfort. He assured me that we're ok without explanation. So, I waited for the hard descent into the Bali Strait but was to have noticed we touched down seemingly normally. I thought that the miracle of the parting of Red Sea happened again but as we taxied in further, the truth became evident.
I was relieved that my eyes lied to me while we landed and made mental note to examine more closely the things I cannot see directly. This was the lesson of landing at Denpassar. I told this true story to indicate how I came to visit this romantic island. The rest of the entrance procedures went off without incident and we were on our way our Nusa Dua (literally two islands) hotel. Nusa Dua, as an area, was an abnormality. Tourists that stayed there were restricted from interacting normally with the Islanders. The only indigenous people who, at the time, were allowed near the Nusa Dua hotels were workers and some service providers.
In order to understand a country better one has to speak to its normal citizens on an equal basis, since the master/servant relationship hampers the formulation of questions and clearly introduces certain unknowns into answers.
But when my colleagues and I went to Kuta Beach to experience more of local people, we found the Beach was really picturesque but there were touts in our faces every second step. If you said "no thanks" to offers of local girls, they would make offers of boys for rent. It seemed that there were never-ending throngs of people offering some product or the other for sale. This veritable gauntlet irritated my colleague and I and we decided to drive to the other side of Bali to see the rest for ourselves.
We left Kuta at about 11:00 and drove in a North Easterly direction to Tulamben and we saw many delightful sights on our way there.
The obligatory family transport sedan - the motorcycle - was everpresent and the Indonesians drive on the same side of the road as we South Africans, or that is the theory. I'm not going to try and paint the South African public motoring picture brighter through complaining about driving in other countries. The little incident that happened to me was a truck that overtook a long line of cars and, by doing so straying into the oncoming traffic lane (mine at that time). Since the truck was quite a distance away, I paid the incident no notice, thinking that the truck will filter back into its own lane long before it reaches me. As time passed, I became aware that it was cutting the return to its own side very close. This meant me moving onto the shoulder of my side which was a good move, as the truck whizzed past me still on my side of the road. I was stunned but after looking around at other motorists, they seems rather surprised at my late sidestep. I got the impression that on that stretch of road this sort of truck behaviour was normal and, since I can also be mistaken for a certain kind of SE Asian, my fellow travellers seemed to think MY ACTIONS untoward! Your call on the evidence on the next phone video?:
I was suddenely awake for the rest of the afternoon and we made it to North Eastern Bali in good time. We drove all along the North Bali coast towards the Western side.
We passed a gas station in one of the towns but we we on mountainside when we realised we may have been overoptimistic about the fuel economy of our vehicle. Just when we thought about whether to turn back, we saw petrol advertised on the roadside. It was a little ramshackle table with two 750ml bottles of stuff plus an advertising sign on it. The stuff in the bottles smelt like fuel but we needed more than the two bottles. The gentleman at the table said no problem and disappeared down a ravine on a rope like a modern-day Tarzan. I followed suite, not being too put off by monkey business. A little way down the mountainside, I saw that the guy had a well-stocked spare parts store in a cave. There was also more fuel in this store. We winched up the fuel, put it in the tank, paid our benefactor and we were on our way again. Lesson: Always carry some Ruppiah (local currency) in Indonesia - it comes in handy!
We carried on until Ye Sanih then turned south towards Ubud and made it to our Nusa Dua hotel around midnight. You'll note form my pic that Nusa Dusa was not all fun and games - work reports required to be written..
The other activities involved water-based fun and games. To wit:
I've promised you the long journey a while ago but this means postponing Paris 4 for at least another post.
So be it, let me do this before I forget.
The Bali trip was not romantic, it was opportunistic.
We finished our business in Bogor, Indonesia within two days instead of the anticipated 5. Upon checking back back with the office, we were told that it would be cheaper to stay out the period in Indonesia than to change our el cheapo flights.
There we were: In Indonesia but not in the best part. As you can see from the pics our hosts tried to ammuse us but after discussion with my colleague (he suggested we fly down to Bali and pay for that return flight ourselves), we decided we'll probably never see Bali unless we took hold of the opportunity right there and then!
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| National Museum |
 |
| Artificial lake with Indonesian Islands layout |
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| Sumatran cultural house |
So we ended up at Denpassar Airport and it was the most unsettling landing I've ever experienced. I have a habit of peering out the windows when landing. I stuck to my habit and was surprised not to see anything but turquaise blue seawater ... and the undercarraige had already been lowered!! Not having checked the airport layout online, I was unaware that the landing strip at Denpassar extends well into the sea. I started panicking as we sand lower and lower. I kept my pose but my colleague started noticing my fidjety discomfort. He assured me that we're ok without explanation. So, I waited for the hard descent into the Bali Strait but was to have noticed we touched down seemingly normally. I thought that the miracle of the parting of Red Sea happened again but as we taxied in further, the truth became evident.
I was relieved that my eyes lied to me while we landed and made mental note to examine more closely the things I cannot see directly. This was the lesson of landing at Denpassar. I told this true story to indicate how I came to visit this romantic island. The rest of the entrance procedures went off without incident and we were on our way our Nusa Dua (literally two islands) hotel. Nusa Dua, as an area, was an abnormality. Tourists that stayed there were restricted from interacting normally with the Islanders. The only indigenous people who, at the time, were allowed near the Nusa Dua hotels were workers and some service providers.
In order to understand a country better one has to speak to its normal citizens on an equal basis, since the master/servant relationship hampers the formulation of questions and clearly introduces certain unknowns into answers.
But when my colleagues and I went to Kuta Beach to experience more of local people, we found the Beach was really picturesque but there were touts in our faces every second step. If you said "no thanks" to offers of local girls, they would make offers of boys for rent. It seemed that there were never-ending throngs of people offering some product or the other for sale. This veritable gauntlet irritated my colleague and I and we decided to drive to the other side of Bali to see the rest for ourselves.
We left Kuta at about 11:00 and drove in a North Easterly direction to Tulamben and we saw many delightful sights on our way there.
 |
| RockinOceanNorthEastBali |
 |
| IndonesianFamilySedan |
 |
| TempleNorthEastBali |
The obligatory family transport sedan - the motorcycle - was everpresent and the Indonesians drive on the same side of the road as we South Africans, or that is the theory. I'm not going to try and paint the South African public motoring picture brighter through complaining about driving in other countries. The little incident that happened to me was a truck that overtook a long line of cars and, by doing so straying into the oncoming traffic lane (mine at that time). Since the truck was quite a distance away, I paid the incident no notice, thinking that the truck will filter back into its own lane long before it reaches me. As time passed, I became aware that it was cutting the return to its own side very close. This meant me moving onto the shoulder of my side which was a good move, as the truck whizzed past me still on my side of the road. I was stunned but after looking around at other motorists, they seems rather surprised at my late sidestep. I got the impression that on that stretch of road this sort of truck behaviour was normal and, since I can also be mistaken for a certain kind of SE Asian, my fellow travellers seemed to think MY ACTIONS untoward! Your call on the evidence on the next phone video?:
I was suddenely awake for the rest of the afternoon and we made it to North Eastern Bali in good time. We drove all along the North Bali coast towards the Western side.
We passed a gas station in one of the towns but we we on mountainside when we realised we may have been overoptimistic about the fuel economy of our vehicle. Just when we thought about whether to turn back, we saw petrol advertised on the roadside. It was a little ramshackle table with two 750ml bottles of stuff plus an advertising sign on it. The stuff in the bottles smelt like fuel but we needed more than the two bottles. The gentleman at the table said no problem and disappeared down a ravine on a rope like a modern-day Tarzan. I followed suite, not being too put off by monkey business. A little way down the mountainside, I saw that the guy had a well-stocked spare parts store in a cave. There was also more fuel in this store. We winched up the fuel, put it in the tank, paid our benefactor and we were on our way again. Lesson: Always carry some Ruppiah (local currency) in Indonesia - it comes in handy!
We carried on until Ye Sanih then turned south towards Ubud and made it to our Nusa Dua hotel around midnight. You'll note form my pic that Nusa Dusa was not all fun and games - work reports required to be written..
 |
| Report writing in Bali. Too wonderful outside to care about doing it inside |
My other adventures namely the trip back to Cape Town still awaits.
We planned to be out of Bali by 16:00 to make our 20:00 flight from Jakarta to Dubai. So we pre-booked a flight out of Bali for around that time. When we arrived at Denpassar Airport at about 14:00 in pouring rain to check in, we were told the flight to Jakarta was cancelled. Our money was refunded immediately and in cash but we were left to scrounge around for another flight to Jakarta. We eventually found one on a local airline which we avoided travelling on for the inbound journey as a result of its reputation on the internet (found by my colleague). Necessity being the mother of invention however caused us to throw caution to the wind and we took the tickets. This was good thinking as well since a search for other options remained fruitless. As we boarded, still on guard against our decision, we caught the overwhelming smell of jet fuel and directly below us a large dark patch signified spilt fuel. We could not imagine where else the fuel came from but the attempted filling of our aircraft's tanks.
This new knowledge accumulated to our fear centres It did nothing to assuage our feelings of impending doom.
When I got to my seat my fears got worse. My seat was directly in front of an exit. In my experience of aircraft, these seats normally did not recline. My seat however, depsite my best efforts, would do nothing but recline. After a while I gave up and waited for the cabin attendant to rough me up. The cabin attendants however ignored my angled seat and I started to suspect they were long aware of the issue. For some strange reason, this made me feel a bit more comfortable. Weird psychological processes were at play here.
All I can say is that my reclining seat was comfortable on take-off and we made it safely enough and in time to catch our connecting flight in Jakarta. No doom, impending or otherwise there - were blessed by God!
From Jakarta our flight stopped at Changi in Singapore (where my colleague got off to do some technology shopping) and then in Colombo, Sri Lanka (we stayed on the plane at that stop-over), before we made our way to Dubai. The multiple stops and specifically the piercing announcements, apart from adding seriously to the journey time, made sleeping on the plane almost impossible.
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| Distraction (with wheels) at DubaiInternational |
At Dubai we waited and got distracted by a full size Ferrari for a few hours until we got on the Johannesburg flight. Nine and a bit hours later we were safely in Johannesburg. After a two-hour wait, we took a flight to Cape Town where we arrived over 39 hours after reporting at Denpassar airport. The worst part was staying awake at Dubai International because the coffee shop was closed.
There was great jubilation when it opened at 06:00 in the morning. You see my colleague, like most people, needs coffee to stay awake and I need strong coffee to fall asleep!! In our family it is just me and my daughter that share this rather odd physiological process. My two sons and the Good Wife call us aliens! Hope there are similar people among the blog readers otherwise we'll stand out like real weirdos.
Let me know!
We'll possibly go to Paris 4 next or I might simply throw in another surpise, like the Frenchie's first long trip on a public road. She's no Beast but has her own wiles on the road.
Keep well and travel safely even if it's only to work and back!
Cheers.
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