It seems that whenever you tell people you’re going to Indonesia, they assume you’re actually just going to Bali.
Whereas, we actually planned not to come to Bali at all. Having read about Bali when we were researching Indonesia, we decided that it wasn’t really ‘us’. It seems that the south of the island, where most people go (and where the airport is) has suffered a lot from over tourism in the last decade or so, changing it from the laid back, slightly hippy backpacker destination of old, to an overcrowded, over-urbanised destination with high levels of traffic and the like.
Nonetheless, to get from Gili Air where we had been, to Yogyakarta, where we wanted to go next, we had two choices. Backtrack to the airport and Lombok and take a plane back to Jakarta and then on to Yogyakarta; or take a ferry from Gili Air to Bali and then a plane direct from Bali to Yogyakarta. So as ‘seasoned’ (Admin – do you mean old!) AND intrepid travellers, we chose the latter option!
By taking the first ferry of the day, we could in theory have completed the whole journey in a day. However, advice generally seemed to be not to bank on a flight on the same day as the 2 hour ferry, in case bad whether delayed / cancelled the ferry. And so it was that we had an overnight stop on Kuta, in southern Bali!
By the time we’d reached Kuta it was mid afternoon, so we only had an evening there, just enough time to walk down to the beach area, find a beer and some dinner, before an early night ahead of our morning flight out of there. (Admin – as luck would have it, they managed to find that authentic indonesia bar chain that is ‘Hard Rock Café, justification for ending up there spewed out below).
And so that was what we did. And wow, were we glad we were only there for an evening! What we found were row upon row of cheap beach bars (think bean bag chairs or plastic chairs and cheap umbrellas) on the beach and the main stat behind was cheap cafes and chains, including Starbucks, yey!
We really didn’t fancy the beach bars and were hoping for something just a little more chilled. But after a walk along the front (dodging the endless mopeds and horsedrawn carriages send party busses!) we found nothing that fitted the bill, and finally conceded defeat and ended up in Hardrock cafe! Not quite what we’d imagined for our trip to Indonesia! At least it was happy hour so the beers were BOGOF!
Again, this was a place where you can take a lovely exotic looking photo of the sunset, and show nothing of the reality of what was actually around us!
The reality was, if you come from Europe I can see zero reason to come all the way to Bali if you’re just going to spend your time in Kuta or one of the similar nearby tourist areas – you might as well save yourself 15 hours on a plane and just go to Magaluf or Benidorm instead!
Party!!!!!!!
Sloth Journeys 