Uluwatu

I signed up for a boxing class this morning, 8 am. Mainly, it was a great cardio workout, but a bit of shadow boxing was involved. 400 burnt calories later, a few of us enjoyed a round of billiards and then, I had to check out. A shame, really, the hostel was a great spot with a bunch of cool people and helpful staff.
I made my way back to the harbour, as the picture shows below. You can see the main island of Bali at the horizon. On some points of Nusa Penida, you could actually see Mt. Agung (biggest volcano on Bali) and Mt. Batur really closely. It was a stunning view - though no pictures…
When I reached Sanur, the harbour on Bali, I tried to book a driver online. Apparently, there are restrictions with where Grab drivers (it‘s an app) can pick you up and the harbour was one of the restricted areas. Unfortunately, my driver failed to communicate this and kept telling me to keep walking and keep going to different places with no end in sight. However, there are seemingly hundreds of normal taxi drivers around that area and they are amazingly aggressive when it comes to securing business. They lie to you, give you extremely high prices, contact their colleagues via Walkie Talkie about where you want to go, they follow you, they pester you relentlessly, they gradually decrease their prices a bit the further you walk away, but they don‘t leave you alone. Eventually, I gave up as my original driver had a few problems with communication. I think I negotiated a somewhat decent price, though and usually - as soon as the people get your business, they turn out to be really nice. But every time this happens, it is extremely uncomfortable. At the hostel I heard from another girl that she too, was dragged into a shop by a relentless woman, and the girl actually ended up with a pronounced hematoma from that grab around her wrist. However, I also hear that this gets even worse in other places, e.g. Thailand. I can‘t confirm that yet, of course, but it is interesting, how many times I‘ve heard it now.
Late in the afternoon, I had made it to my new AirBnB. Well… It certainly looks nice in the pictures. I‘m in the white house, unfortunately not in the cooler looking cabins. There‘s a pool and a kitchen area that looks like a pool bar. So far, so good. The inside of my place, though, is anything but clean or appealing. There are fleas in the bed and moth flies everywhere else. The lock on the wardrobe is a joke. You can turn it around all you want. Nothing gets locked. ^^
I thought I might cheer up when exploring the area. I booked a scooter driver to get closer to the beach Padang Padang (what a ride, you better hold on tight and definitely ask for a helmet - they often don‘t have two or you might end up getting theirs, which is a nice gesture, but not safe for them either). I had dinner first (another disappointment, sadly, (I did have a fantastic breakfast, though)) and wanted to go to the beach, but an impressive thunderstorm was forming and hitting, so I got back instead. Yeah, so far I don’t really like Uluwatu. We‘ll see what the next few days will bring.Read more