The south end of the beach at Hua Hin, Thailand.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Hua Hin, Thailand.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Maldives on March 23rd.

Sunday, May 26, 2019

Our one day in Indonesia

Slept like a rock Saturday night, and up Sunday morning to write an interesting blog post about Singapore. If you missed it, you can read it here...

https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2019/05/singapore-to-bali-indonesia.html

Then, we went out to get some breakfast.


I had read of a nearby local Indonesian restaurant that got great reviews. Just a basic place, but we've learned that's sometimes where you get the most inexpensive (and sometimes the best!) food.

It was buffet style, but you went up to where all the food was and a lady put your choices on a plate for you. Then, depending on what you chose, she hands you a card with the price on it. How she comes up with the price... who knows?!

My breakfast looks more like dinner!
Cost for my plate of food was 31,000 rupiahs ($2.90 CAD, $2.20 USD).

Then, we each had an orange juice, but it was not fresh squeezed and tasted a bit like it had been watered down and maybe a little sugar added. But, it was still a good meal and the total breakfast bill for the two of us including the drinks was 65,000 rupiahs ($6.00 CAD, $4.50 USD).

Back at the room, I tried to check in for our flight to Australia and an error message kept coming up. Then, I checked the flight status and it said "Your flight has been cancelled".

Huh??

I checked the airport departures website, and all flights still showed on schedule including ours.

I phoned the Malindo Air number in Singapore, and they said there was no change and could not explain why it came up as cancelled, or why I could not check in. They suggested I could only check in at the airport.

Now I was nervous. But, we weren't that far from the airport and we could walk there along the beach. And without our bags, so it wouldn't be that difficult.

This is the alleyway in front of our guest house. 
Pedestrians have to share it with the scooters!

Scooters are everywhere. 

Some kind of old temple building. 

Ruth, sitting by the entrance.

Kuta Beach.

The Kuta area and Kuta Beach are certainly not the areas we would return to Bali to see. It's packed full of mostly Australian tourists on one or two week vacations. Lots of chain style restaurants, massage parlors, and bars. But, we knew this in advance so we weren't at all surprised by it.

Indonesia is country #36 for us, and even though it adds to our country tally, this is not the way we wanted to see it. We will be returning some day. To the non touristy and country areas for some hiking and exploring.

The south part of Kuta Beach is pretty quiet, while a little north from here you get the surfer crowd. 

Another temple structure of some kind.

Scenery along the way.

Indonesian boats.

The fancy Discovery Kartika Plaza Hotel.

Thousands of scooters parked at the airport.

At the airport, we found the Malindo Air office and went in to see about our flight status. The young guy got onto his computer and found our booking. He also said that everything looks fine and the flight has not been cancelled. But, he said we could only check in at the airport, three hours before the flight. He could not explain why.

With that, we went back outside and made our way back to the beach taking another route.

Fill up station for scooters!

Entrance to a small hotel.

The Bali Beer Cycle... a rolling bar!

Laundry service... no bullshit!

We wandered to the north part of the beach and found a place to sit and have a couple of cold drinks and watch the surfers for an hour or so...

There are so many surfers... they must crash into each other sometimes!

Our view for an hour or so!

No, we don't have sunburned legs! We were sitting under a red shade umbrella.

Some of them were really good!
This guy looks like he's wiping out, but he recovered and kept on going!

A few girls surfing too!

And then we went and found a place for early supper. Picked up our bags at the holding room at the guest house, and called a GRAB taxi for the ride to the airport. These grab taxis are super cheap... the bill was only 34,000 rupiahs ($3.25 CAD, $2.35 USD) for the almost 4 km ride! 

And so we are back at Bali airport waiting for check in for our five and a half hour flight to Adelaide.

Next blog post coming to you from Australia where we will be doing a two and a half month camper trip!

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And in Canada...




5 comments:

  1. Handy to know Grab works in Bali too as we've only used it in Singapore. Pleased your flight wasn't cancelled, you've had enough re booking to do recently. We also don't care for Kuta but there are totally different places elsewhere on Bali and even better still on the more remote islands east. Given the prices there I am sure you will be looking to return in the future. We certainly are.

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    Replies
    1. We were very happy with how it worked, wouldn't hesitate to use it again.

      We were very happy as well. Not sure that we would us Malindo Air again though. Their communication is terrible, the website didn't work properly as in not being able to check in online and the fact that Kevin has read stories where they just cancel flights if there is not enough passengers and then rebook you for the next day.

      We understood ahead of time that Denpasar was not the best place to experience Bali and we would definitely return to Bali so that we can visit the rural areas and get in some good hiking.

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  2. From the photos...it reminded me of Cancun and surrounding areas with the temple or Mayan ruins and the beaches. Food looked delish. A little different than what I saw in the movie Eat, Pray, Love with Julia Roberts LOL (if indeed she filmed in Bali). Good that you got a glimpse of Bali. Safe travels

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  3. Kuta is a good place to start with Bali but touristy. Next time go inland, it's beautiful. Great deals on Airbnb too. Have a wonderful time in Australia!

    ReplyDelete

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