Commencing the real adventure

After walking around Perth for hours in burning sun I was really tired when I arrived in Bali on Monday evening. Thankfully I had decided to treat myself, by organising for my accommodation to pick me up from the airport. Even with this perk it still was not a quick process to get to my bed!

Arriving in Denpessar is an attack of Asia. First of all getting my luggage was chaotic because it was signed to be on one conveyor belt, but after waiting there for ages a guy came to tell us it was on a different conveyor belt, then whilst waiting there for ages I saw my bag on a different conveyor belt. People with less obvious bags would probably have been waiting at the wrong conveyor belt for hours due to that 'system'. Then once through passport control I was harassed by a continuous stream of people trying to sell me taxis or hotels and when I arrived at arrivals to find my actual taxi/accommodation there were hundreds of people crammed in with signs up. I had to slow my pace and cruise alongside them, but I managed to find my guy and was glad to be a step nearer to my bed.

It was just one step, next we had to queue at every stage of the journey to the car park and then at the car park my guy went to get the car whilst I waited for him. It can't have been more than 50 meters away, but yet it took him aggggggeeesss. There was a constant stream of cars coming in a gridlocked queue to the exit. Of course they were all beeping each other, as if there was any hope that it could move faster. But instead it just made for a really unpleasant wait, but no shorter one. Meanwhile it is pouring with rain and the hot humidity feels suffocating.

Once in the air conditioned car I was happy and was pleased with my choice, because even with all the palava I had still excused myself from the hassle of negotiations with one of the thousands of people trying to sell me a taxi.

My driver was the guy who owned the homestay I had booked to stay in. He was a lovely man and had previously worked for 6 years for the cruisliner company that I was on in the Carribean, so I really enjoyed hearing about his experience from the other side.

The home stay was a lovely place, but I didn't stay long as I booked it purposefully in a place I could make a quick departure from. I have avoided Bali so far because of the reputation of it being the Australians playground, now that I am here my plan is to avoid all the drunks and see something more real. So next morning I rose early to get a bus to Amed, a town on the East Coast.Leggi altro