Indonesia 2000, Part 15

Today, in Harvey Bay, I saw the most magnificient creatures - the great humpback whales - getting
within meters of them. Had to return a couple of days earlier due to an asthmatic old lady feeling
very sea-sick...so we get another trip for free!!!  Can't wait until Monday!

Anyway, here follows teh next part of Indonesia...


SATURDAY 15 JULY

Collected our tickets for Brunei and Australia, (they managed to get us on the flights that we’d
wanted), had breakfast and then set off on the long journey to Gunung Batur and the promise of hot
springs. It was a very long trip, particularly with the heavy traffic in and around Denpasar. A
bemo, a bigger bemo and then a bus eventually took us to village of Penelokan just after 1pm,
destroying all chances of climbing Batur and returning to Denpasar on the same day.

Gunung Batur, an active volcano, and it’s namesake lake are within a large ancient volcanic
crater. (Indonesia is full volcanoes!) Penelokan sits on the rim of this crater so we got
fantastic views of the volcano, the lake and the villages around it.  

Penelokan was full of hawkers, left, right and the other place. And we got skanked by a couple of
them! But it was good the way they managed to fool both of us! Despite Lonely Planet’s advise to
ignore hawkers, we don’t. Most of the time we just politely refuse but this time the deal looked
too good!

We’d negotiated down the price of a wooden chest set, beatifully carved in typical Balinese style,
from 30USD to 5USD. It took some bargaining and the guy only let up after w’ed started walking
away. We thought that we’d got a good deal but a few minutes later another bloke asks us if wanted
to swap our’s for one he was carrying. We were puzzled and thought that his one must’ve been
crapper. But as it turned out, it was our one which was of lesser quality!

Though the boxes looked similar, the pieces in his set were much more detailed and better
polished. His set looked like the one we’d originally bought, or rather thought we’d bought. The
other guy had swapped it for the duff one while we weren’t looking and we weren’t suspicious
enough to notice. 

This guy now tried to charge us for the swap and we’d agreed to pay an extra 5,000. But in the
midst of the bargaining, he’d swapped his good one for another duff one! Fortunately, this time we
were sharp enough to notice! Welcome to Northern Bali!

Hopefully it was a good learning experience.

Anyway, we took a taxi down to the crater and the village of Toya Bungkah by the lake. And on to
the worst ever hot spring imaginable! A tiny area by the side of the lake almost enclosed by
rocks, it wasn’t hot,  was littlered with little saop containers and was below knee deep. There
was a Hindu holy water place near the ‘hot’ spring. The activities there, including cleansing of
the faithful, were much more interesting.

I’d never been to a hot spring before and this wasn’t the best of introductions. But we bathed
anyway. This was of course the local hot spring. The tourists one, part of a hotel, costs 5USD
each so was way beyond our means.

Returned to Penelokan to catch a bus back to Denpasar (by way of Gianyar and Batubulan).
Fortunately it wasn’t too late and we could catch a bemo back to our hotel, helped by a whole
bunch of sisters from Bandung. Food, emailing, prayers, zzzzzzzzzzzz.


SUNDAY 16 JULY

Didn’t have much plan for today besides catching up on writing. Had a bit of a lie in so missed
breakfsat, only having a cornello. I left Mustafa at the hotel, the plan being that we’d meet up
in the evening at Kuta. Had a big brunch and started writing. Wrote three full days of Indonesia
but then the stupid computer crashed! And of course, I’d lost it all! It was also slow so I
decided to move to Kuta.

Met two brothers from Lombok and one from Surabaya on the bus to Kuta. Hung around on the infamous
Kuta beach for a while before leaving them, agreeing to meet up for Sunset, to find a place to
stay.

But I first went to the shop of the Minangkabu of the Senggigi to Gili Trawangan boat whose mother
had recently died. He wasn’t there. It was now 3pm.

Kuta, the busiest tourist centre on Bali, is very expensive, the most in all of Indonesia. Finding
cheap accommodation proved to be very difficult, well, impossible actually. Eventually settled on
a double room for 3GBP, but only after being nearly attacked by a pack of dogs whilst on the way
to another hostel. Desperate times!

More writing, dinner, prayer and it was Sunset. Went to the beach but couldn’t find the brothers
nor Mustafa, who I’d arranged (by email) to meet, but I was a bit late I have to admit. Went for a
nice stroll on the beach anyway.

After Maghrib, a little light shopping, and it was down to a marathon session of writing, as you
will have gathered from the many emails that you received that day, disturbed only by Mustafa
popping in to collect our room key. Returned to the hostel at about 2am.


To be continued...

Wassalamaulaikum,
Abu Nasir Muhammad Abdul Hafiz ibn Rashid

PS: As I write this I am sitting next to a girl from Bournmouth who was born on the 10th of August
1976. Had also met a Padang University student who was born on that day. But I've yet to meet
anybody called Muhammad Rashid born on that day though I'm aware of one such who lives in West
London.