Indonesia - Bali

Our flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bali with AirAsia was very bumpy, and going though a storm was not fun. When we arrived a smiley man was waiting for us to take us to the B&B. The drive to it was quite interesting; the streets were so busy even though it was late and little shops and cafes were interspersed with smart shops all along the drive there. lots of people around and LOTS of mopeds everywhere.

We have 20 days in Bali, and we have only booked the first two nights at Villa Purnama with a Private En-suite, so we are looking forward to that. Not sure what we are going to do afterwards. Bryan is looking at taking the PADI rescue course to fill his time while we are on the island. Jody is looking at just relaxing. So we’ll wait and see what we will be doing.

We’ve arrived at Villa Purnama, where is the En-suite? Nice big room and lovely bed, seems more like a converted house in the middle of a residential area but it is dark when we arrive so we will hold judgement until tomorrow. A short walk to the shop to buy some snacks and two large bottles of beer, cost IDR 30,000 which works out at about £2.00 each. Off to bed now, I wonder what Bali will look like in the morning?

Time to test out the bed and see if it is as good as it looks.

Well we slept like zombies so bed was as good as it looked! Our first morning we headed to Echo Beach on our moped which we had free use of from the B&B, Jody driving - first time in almost 30 years for her and Bryan had to get on the back - brave man! Echo Beach was only about 15 minutes away (only 5 for someone on a moped without Bryan on the back!!!) was such a disappointment. Is it not world famous? Black sand, very scruffy and in need of some serious TLC. There are a few cafe’s on the water front where we stopped for some lunch.

Bryan’s turn to ride the bike back. We took a different way back to the B&B and found some stunning rice pādī fields.

As we’d only booked for two nights, we asked if we could extend our stay but they were fully booked. So while Jody was catching up on her sleep, Bryan surfed the internet for our next destination, Gili Isles seem to be the best option.

So the next morning we were up and on the bus at 6:30 to catch the fast boat to Gili. We arrived at Lombok and found we had got off the boat too early. So after trying to barter with the locals to take us to Gili, they want IRP 300,000 (about £25) we declined as we’d read that we could get it for IRP 20,000 (about £1.25). This was true, but we needed to be at the next port some 5km away. We started walking and about 1km into the walk after speaking to all the locals on the way, one of them offered us a lift. We agreed a price and then he appeared with two mopeds! No way, we had our heavy cases and the road was wet. We declined the offer of a lift. A few minutes later a man in his car offered us a lift for the same price.

We finally arrived at the port where we bought our tickets for IRP 20,000 each and had to wait for two hours as the boat was leaving at 2pm. So for the next two hours we got hassled from the locals, want a fast boat to Gili Meno, want to buy some jewellery, want a fast boat back to Bali. Non-stop for two hours. Getting on the boat some of the locals picked up our bags and loaded them on to the boat, then demanded they got paid...! We have no money said Bryan, and they finally went away. oh will we ever get to Gili?

Villa Purnama

Room rating: 5/10

Location: 4/10 - near nothing and no where

Staff: 2/10 - ripped us off badly on our boat fare to Gili

Value for Money: 8/10 all this for £11 a night!

Other comments: interesting place but too busy. We also found out later that we had been deceived in to buying, what we thought was the cheapest, fast boat tickets to Gili for IRP 480,000 each should have cost IRP 250,000

Stay again? no too far from anything

Overall experience: 6 - Bali is very very busy, and not much of the holiday destination that we have been lead to believe it would be.