Day 14: Across to Java

Finally the day where we leave the tourist-heavy confines of Bali and forge on to lesser-chartered waters. We had a car booked to take us from Pemuteran to the ferry terminal at Gilimanuk; arriving at 9:30 for an hour-long drive. We reckoned today's journey would take about 3 hours, though we'd forgotten that crossing from Bali into Java also means a change of timezone!

The car turned up and the drive was pretty uneventful, though we drove around the fringes of Bali's earliest national park. It was quite unusual to see somewhere on the island that wasn't developed or at least utilised for growing something!

We walked onto the ferry as foot passengers (6000 rupiah or $0.60 AUD each) and found seats upstairs. I was a bit conscious that we were the only Westerners on the boat, but nobody aside from the procession of vendors really gave us a second glance. The process of loading and unloading the boat is quite slow - the ferry was mostly loaded when we boarded but we still sat there for probably 30 minutes before undocking.

The crossing was fairly gentle and actually quite quick - Bali and Java are very close together as you can see from the map above. We were among the first off the ferry and it was typical third-world chaos at the exit, people selling rides and car services and "bemo" rides (bemos are essentially private/public buses - anyone can ride and it's very cheap, but the car is basically an old Ford Transit sized van and it'll be crowded and smoky. We managed to find a legit taxi rank across the road and got a ride to our hotel, which we were happy about because the price was about 2/3rds of the original bemo price!!

Checked in at the hotel with no problems, small but modern and clean, and spent the afternoon in our room relaxing. We plan to tackle Ijen Crater tonight so we'll need the rest! We booked a driver to pick us up at 1am, and ordered room service for lunch. On the drive in we'd noticed that all the local street food places and warungs were closed as Ramadan still has a few days yet to run.

Ventured out briefly to pick up water and snacks for tonight's hike, and managed to find a pair of gloves as well which should help. It's supposed to be very cold at the top and neither of us have many warm clothes aside from a thermal shirt (and Shandos has zip-off pants she can re-attach). Dinner at the hotel restaurant and then in bed by 8pm with alarms set for 12:45!Read more