Tag #46 to #48

Good evening!

On Sunday, we spent the whole day traveling from Gili Meno to Lombok and then to Bali. Therefore, we were up early in the morning and looked for an organization in the port town that was supposed to take us to Kuta in Bali by shuttle service for 400,000 Rp. So far, so good. Soon we were taken to Lembar by an old bus with several tourists - the port town in the southwest of the island from where the ferry to Padang Bai in Bali departs. After four hours of slow driving in the relatively luxurious ferry, which was even equipped with TVs, we arrived in Padang Bai. Until then, the service had worked quite well... but here it was quite difficult: Actually, a shuttle bus should take us from there to Kuta and to our hotel, but we waited on the roadside with several other tourists who had the same flimsy ticket in their hands. We were then pointed out by an extremely rude and quickly enraged Balinese man, who apparently belonged to the organization, that a bus was already on its way. Well, after about an hour, a rickety bus finally arrived... but unfortunately, only about eleven people fit in the cramped bus and we were about fifteen... And that was not the only problem. We found out that the bus only went to the centers of Ubud and Kuta and not to our hotel as agreed.... When we complained about this, the service men almost completely lost it and shouted at us to call Lombok and complain there.... Well, what could we do, we had to somehow get to Kuta, so we squeezed ourselves into the bus as much as possible, our luggage was tied to the roof with a single string..... They simply left the three girls who didn't have a seat in the bus, complaints were drowned out by shouting ('Shut up!!') and calls to the organization were either not answered or ended unfriendly. Eventually, after hours of driving, we arrived in the center of Kuta, together with an older English lady - it was around 9 o'clock in the evening. Since the lady didn't know where her hotel was and how to get there, we tried to persuade the driver to take her to her hotel as the last passenger - but the driver got angry, stopped in the middle of an intersection in the center of Kuta, got out and called his boss to complain. Our attempts to persuade him were in vain... So we gave up and got a taxi driver to make sure the old lady arrived safely at her hotel. We walked through the very touristy city, looked for something to eat and finally arrived at our homestay, which was at least very centrally located.

Yesterday, we only explored the city with all its tourist attractions - Starbucks on every corner, all the well-known fast food chains and the legendary HardRock Cafe with the HardRock Hotel on a huge, fenced-off area on the beach. We walked through the shopping malls and streets of the city, lined with upscale sports and surf shops. Unfortunately, we missed the sunset at the spacious Seminyak Beach in our desperate attempt to find access to the beach: everything was just built up with the walls of the numerous resorts.

But today we were able to enjoy the sunset on the north coast of Bali, in Singaraja. Today we went out on the scooter to see the Tanah Lot Temple - a temple located on a small island off the coast in the sea - and the famous Jatiluwih rice terraces. Well, we skipped the temple because 120,000 Rp just to see it seemed too expensive to us... So when we finally arrived at the rice terraces and were asked to pay another 80,000 Rp entrance fee, we gave in and paid for the view. In the beautiful elevated town of Jatiluwih, we had a wonderful panorama of the extensive rice terraces. After that, we continued on the mountain road to Singaraja, which wound its way up and then down... So we arrived perfectly at the sunset on the north coast of Bali in the evening, where we enjoyed the last rays before it got dark again so quickly (it's really completely dark within 15 minutes).

Our nice, local accommodation even had an electric kettle in our room. Of course, we took advantage of this opportunity (since our electric kettle has been broken since Bangkok ;P) and so the evening became a cozy eating and tasting evening in our room, because we discovered a large, cheap supermarket on the way and took some ready-made meals with us. It was definitely worth it again!! :D

Your TeriYaki :)