Monthly Archives: November 2015

Day 117 – Ninja Turtles

hard to tell who is more excited ...

hard to tell who is more excited …

Staying right at Sukamade beach had one clear advantage: We could tag along to the release of hatchlings in the morning! It would be an early start at 6am but well worth it. A few words to the turtle saving program at Sukamade first though. The beach is, for some reason, the preferred beach for laying eggs for green turtles and leatherback turtles. No one really knows why as there are similar beaches around but it is how it is. Currently, Sukamade is part of the Meru Betiri National Park and a turtle saving program has been running since 1988. Turtles will come on land to lay eggs, burrow them and then go back into the ocean, leaving vulnerable eggs on the beach. Those eggs are threatened by natural predators such as wild boars, crabs and even ants but maybe even more so from poachers. To help keep turtles numbers up, the rangers dig up the eggs, burrow them in their own hatchery and release the hatched turtles back into the ocean.

Since 2005, all adult turtles coming on land to lay eggs are checked and tagged. Flo and I were lucky enough to see a green turtle last night as it was checking out the beach, probably to lay eggs later. Continue reading

Day 116 – By any means

Sadly, she decided not to lay eggs (before we were allowed there). Only 30% nests compared to last year.

Sadly, she decided not to lay eggs (before we were allowed there). Only 30% nests compared to last year.

The moon stood almost full in the sky, peeking through impressive backlit clouds. The surf was thundering a couple of meters away and there is no light but the moon’s. Excitedly, our little party patrolled the beach. We spotted tracks in the sand, but the real goal of this nightly adventure was nowhere to be seen, until finally: A one meter long greenback turtle was spotted, scuttling over the beach. The ranger turned on his torch, we walked up from behind not to disturb it. What a magnificent sight. We are once again humbled and stunned by our trip.  How did we get here?

Continue reading

Day 115 – Selamat tinggal, Bali!

Yes, there was Leberwurscht for breakfast. And yes, Flo had it. I didn’t. As you probably guessed. =P The pool was smooth as and really tempting but we withstood it…barely. Toes were dipped in…

A re-purposed boat..very cool

A re-purposed boat..very cool

After breakfast, we said goodbye to Richard and drove off to Pemuteran. It didn’t take long at all so we arrived at Joe’s bar at 11am, just when it opened. Joe wasn’t there yet so we sat down and had a lemon juice. During this one drink, Joe arrived. Joe is a friend of Santosh who called him to announce us so he knew something about our travels.

Talking to Joe was awesome but since we only drove about 40km so far, we were itching to get a bit more miles (kilometres actually) under our wheels (and butts). After two hours, a piece of Black Forest cake with vanilla ice cream and Joe’s Indonesian insight, we drove another 30 minutes to get to the ferry harbour in Gilimanuk. Here, the tickets were very cheap and ferries seem to leave every 5min. Java is so close at this point of Bali that I joked I could probably swim over if the ferry sank. The ferry did look dodgy this time.

Rocinante is hiding between trucks

Rocinante is hiding between trucks

Handing our $3 ticket to an official, we were waved onto the ferry where other officials played real-life Tetris to get the optimal loading for the given space. Flo had to move Rocinante once, when a better spot opened up after the trucks were shuffled a bit.

Supposedly, the ferry takes 30min but ours was the slowest wreck ever built and it took a freaking hour to get us across with other ferries overtaking us left and right.

Finally, we were riding out onto Javanese soil. Our second to last Indonesian island had been reached. With leaving Touristland™, we were now back in the land with stretches of no warungs and the standard of accommodation also dropped immediately. This time though, we also get the price cut with it though. Crossing over to Java also meant crossing another time zone. Thus it was still rather early but we were both knackered so we decided to stay in Bakauheni where the Lonely Planet had advertised for a very cheap and basic place. Exactly what we were looking for: Just beds and a mandi. Perfect for 92k.

Being in our room and having internet enabled us to do some “homework”. Well, mostly Flo did the homework really. First, we checked on the status of our passports which was “processed in Bali”. What did that mean? Did we get the visa or not? Why are our passports in Bali? Are they still there? Or again despite us asking to pick them up in Jakarta? Unfortunately, calling vfs didn’t clarify much. Yes, the passports were on their way back to Bali (just when we left it *facepalm*) but luckily, they could be intercepted and are still in Jakarta. But they couldn’t tell us if the visa had been granted. So we checked immigration New Zealand were our status was “pending”. How can be pending when our passports are on the way back?

It took a while to get through but then the staff in NZ explained that our visa was granted and that our status says “pending” as the visa has no end date and thus breaks the system. YUUUUUUUSS, permanent New Zealand residents!

Day 114 – The Leberwurst Connection

It was almost a sin not to have taken a photo of our marvelous breakfast. Then again, some things should be enjoyed uninterrupted. We decided to go all in with the level of the accommodation and have breakfast there. It was excellent: Freshly toasted home made bread, local made jams, fresh fruit salad, scrambled egg and fresh juice. It was so delicious! We even had briefly considered staying another night, but after that breakfast we were thoroughly luxuried out.

View back north where we came from

View back north where we came from

We took our time and were back on the road by 11 am. By chance of our starting position, our GPS chose a beautiful back road back up the mountain towards our first goal. The three lakes looked cool on the map and as expected delivered on beautiful roads and moderate amounts of tourists.

We briefly dipped down to the lakes themselves, but found little to hold us for longer. The first one was the most touristy and after realizing that we stopped in front of another temple. Half way out of our gear we did a 180° and were back on the road in no time. The second lake was quieter and had the first campground we found in Indonesia on its shores. It was too early to think of camping and the warung had no food – so after a quick drink with lake view we headed for the ridge road over the last two lakes.

at lunch, great spot

at lunch, great spot

Coming in we saw that the ridge road had plenty of eateries with a view, so that is where we were heading for. The road held true with all levels of eateries. We ended up stopping at a top end warung run by a french expat. He had the trees on the lake side cleared and put up tables across the street so that guest could eat with a view. I had a chat with the owner, who it turned out had been travelling quite a bit in his day.

I still did not make it all the way back to our table after that. As happened in New Zealand, a couple on vacation from Germany noticed the German licence plate on Rocinante and we got talking some more. Alexandra and Patrick seemed definitively to be on the nicer end of tourists we encounter. Just earlier that day we had another weird run in with Germans that re-affirmed our dislike for “touristy” areas. We got asked the same disinterested questions and then got ignored while answering because they had to purchase ridiculously overpriced rubbish from hawkers. Anyway, we gave a business card to Alexandra and Patrick when they left and soon after headed out ourselves.

german welcome for a german bike

german welcome for a german bike

The last itinerary for the day before finding a place to stay. Back in Dili, we got an address from fellow German traveller Hubert – go and say hi to Richard at his place in Lovina. Aptly named “Deutsches Eck” (German corner) we were in for a rough culture shock. Richard has build himself a good life here, with a family and a good little hotel. As we were ready to head out again to find a place to stay (the rooms here are a bit too pricey for us) Richard offered us to stay on the bale bengong (A 3x3m raised platform with a roof for shade that is out front most houses for chilling during the day). We got a mosquito net and there were even blinds, all for an unbeatable fee for the night. When he threw in the promise of “Leberwurst” and sour dough bread, we could not refuse, could we?

So we stuck around for the night, chatted to Richard’s sons, other guests and German expats that came by and gathered further contacts along what we dubbed the “Leberwurst Connection” – a row of German expats along our further path through Indonesia. Speaking German again and even seeing German dishes on the menu was cool and supremely weird at the same time. Definitively something we will need to process a bit once back on the road.

Day 113 – Jalan-Jalan

Jalan-jalan in bahasa indonesia means to walk or to go for a walk. In this case, to wander around without a concrete destination.

I had a terrible night due to being bitten by mosquitoes many, many times. Around 5am, I briefly considered to stay awake but managed some more sleep with episodes of startled awakening when I could hear the stupid things at my ear.

Breakfast made it better (Flo thinks I had a bad night because I was hangry) and we even got Balinese cake to try, courtesy of our lovely hosts. It was basically a small plate filled with sweet things including black rice pudding which many places offer.

Our first view of the caldera (including a bird)

Our first view of the caldera (including a bird)

We took our time this morning; Flo to get his credit card out of bank custody (YAY!) and I to catch up with the blog. Check out time was noon which enabled us to have a nice lazy start into the day. We then rode to Danau Batur which is a caldera lake. Basically, the landscape forms a crater with a 700meter “mountain” in the middle and a lake next to it on one side. It is supposedly a big tourist attraction, which is why I wasn’t especially keen to go. Flo continued by telling me about aggressive hawkers there and the monopoly one group has over tours up on the mountain…and I was more than sceptical after yesterday’s experience.

Already the road there was at least 10km of tourist shop next to tourist shop selling all the bric-a-bracs you could ever want. Or not.

My helmet also likes the view from the warung

My helmet also likes the view from the warung

Getting there, I had to revise my pre-made opinion: It is a beautiful spot. From up top on the rim of the caldera, you have a lovely view. Many restaurants line this street, all with the view as their main selling point. But we decided for a warung to save our wallets a bit. The lady in the warung was very nice, opening all the windows so we could enjoy the same view after all. Flo even instagram’d it…which is reserved for the most beautiful spots.

After lunch we decided to head down to the lake. The road led through an old lava flow field from 1969. The black rocks were pretty…the hawkers not so much. Reading that the hot springs “are the only ones in Bali with healing powers”, we finally turned around. Though not until Flo got pissy with a guy trying to sell us the hot springs or a bed for the night. Coming back up the road, Flo stopped for a couple of nice shots with Rocinante and the mountain; just to be swarmed before I could even take a single picture. They graciously gave us some space…but not enough that I could use my camera without zoom. *grin*

Nice windy road through lush forest. We even had a bit of rain

Nice windy road through lush forest. We even had a bit of rain

From here, the plan was to head to the north coast of Bali. It was a very nice afternoon for riding, almost a little too cool up in the mountains with heavy clouds above and through lush forest. Having had such a bad night, I was really tired so Flo looked for accommodation along our route. The closest one was about three kilometres from the main road through an impoverished looking village into a narrow driveway. We nearly missed it because the sign was so tiny. However, the name was “Villa Manuk” in the village of Manuksesa and Flo already told me to not get too excited as we might not be able to afford the “villa”. How right he was.

Testing the pool. Result: Well worth it!

Testing the pool. Result: Well worth it!

The villa turned out to be a three star hotel with only four rooms, all costing much more than we wanted to pay. But we got super lucky and were offered a room with 50% discount as it is low season and no customer was around. With the 50% discount, it was still the most expensive room yet but too good an offer to not take it. Flo had checked out the place and called it “a gem”.

That’s pretty much how it turned out to be. Once we accepted the offer, we were led to the dining area by the spring-fed pool without any chlorine in it to wait until staff had prepared our room. To make the wait less long, we got a complimentary welcome fruit juice while fresh flowers were cut for our porch. You’d think the service might be less awesome if you get a 50% discount but not here. We were pampered all the way around.

After dropping our luggage in our now ready room, we jumped into the pool. Staff rushed out to prepare two sun beds for us including two pool towels so we wouldn’t have to use our shower towels.

The location is great. From our room, as well as from the pool actually, you look out towards the mountains clad in rain forest. It only got prettier when the sun set.

 

 

Day 112 – Temple scam

A far away glance of Mount Agung

A far away glance of Mount Agung

Our bungalow was nice for the night but got rather hot in the morning. No one could be found when we wanted to order breakfast…which Flo took with a fir of hangryness. So we packed up, ready to leave. By the time we had put everything on the bike, the lady was there and we even got our breakfast.

So we ride to Pura Besakih, known as the “mother temple”, sitting halfway up one of the high mountains. Being 1000m above sea level gives you great views. The road there was quite enjoyable. As soon as it started to go up, we were stopped though: Tickets needed to be bought. It was 15k per person and a random 5000 for the bike. Okay.

Continue reading

Day 111 – Cruising

Taking aim ...

Taking aim …

I was surprised when we did our daily bookkeeping to learn that we only traveled 48 km today. Feels like more. Never the less, it was a good day. Not mind blowing, but enjoyable and entertaining.

It started alright with a good breakfast – which says something. Breakfast is often included in the room prices, but at 175k per night for two, the money has to be saved somewhere. So breakfast, in westernized establishments is usually either a pancake or two slices of whiter than white toast, plus tea or coffee. Since many locals prefer nasi goreng or rice cake, the pancakes are usually of dubious quality. Not this time though! The pancakes were excellent, we got fresh fruit to go with them. For a bit of colour, as our host said 🙂 – what a great start of the day. Continue reading

Day 110 – Indiana Jones and the temple of the holy spring

Toasted sandwich and yummy muesli with fruit and yoghurt

Toasted sandwich and yummy muesli with fruit and yoghurt

We had an oddball of a day today. After a good night’s sleep and an incredibly tasty breakfast at Cafe Smorgas, we left Sanur in direction of Ubud. This was our planned lunch stop and then we wanted to continue around the east coast and sleep in Amed. Thus the plan.

It took us ages to get out of Sanur. Traffic wasn’t too bad but we stopped ever 10 meters to check on an ATM and a supermarket. Every single ATM we tried would limit the amount you can withdraw to $150 which seems so little if you keep in mind that we pay a $6 fee for every withdrawal. To round off this slow start, it was about 40 degrees at 11am already.

Failing at getting out money and sweating quite profoundly, we made it to the Big trees chocolate factory that I had read about only to find it closed on a Saturday. *meh* Guess we have to come back on a non-weekend day. So we turned around two corners and tried the next ATM before looking for a lunch place. It was 12.30 by this point.

Chocolate factory made out of bamboo...we'll be back!

Chocolate factory made out of bamboo…we’ll be back!

Flo went inside, did some things, talked to the staff and then poked his head outside again. “Take off the gear, we will be here for a while. The ATM just swallowed my card.” Oh fun. The ATM had a mechanical defect with the card slot and was unable to return it…so it just kept it. Talking to the company was rather painful as they insisted that the card either was destroyed already or would be destroyed when they found it. Flo managed to get to the point where they will look for his card on Monday and then inform him to pick it up.

Leaving without Flo’s credit card felt odd but we still have about 5 credit cards left so will still be able to get to our money. Now looking urgently for food, we found the next odd thing: Warungs on this stretch of Bali’s roads are strictly non-vegetarian. We tried three warungs, I said my helpful sentences to convey my vegetarian request and they all waved me away with “tidak sayur, all beef/pork”. That’s new. We finally found a very cheap roadside place that could offer me rice, an omelette and a corn fritter. Starving, we took the greasy offer.

Close-up of a bridge guardian

Close-up of a bridge guardian

Ubud was only a couple of kilometers further and full of tourists. Which helped us as we found the much sought after ATM with a higher limit. However, it also made Flo itch to get away again. Stopping at a square with a row of shops and cafes, he at least agreed to check in the lonely planet what one should do in Ubud. One of the suggested sights was an “Indiana Jones style temple in a forest full of monkeys”. That was a sight that had to be seen.

Driving through the streets full of shops and tourists, I spotted a lot of things I would have liked to check out. Flo still hated the sight. Coming close to the temple, the amount of monkeys wandering around increased. It cost a bit of an entrance fee to get into the area but the whole thing was quite amazing once you managed to get away from the worst crowds. There were monkeys in

Close-up of an ongoing flea treatment

Close-up of an ongoing flea treatment

abundance, also willing to jump on you if you held up food which we didn’t as we’re not big fans of overly friendly monkeys. The statues, temple parts and walkways were awesome for an afternoon stroll and we felt very much like in an Indiana Jones set. Again, a tele might have been nice but these monkeys let you get close anyway.

It was getting late for my taste and I also still wanted to check out the tourists shops so I convinced Flo to stay the night in Ubud. We found a lovely, big room for a very reasonable price tugged away behind a temple. Flo even got Rocinante in the little pathway at the back so it could be behind a gate at night.

For dinner, we found a vegetarian warung (also a novelty for me) before I went on my evening stroll through the shops.

Day 109 – Deja vú

In a sudden turn of events I found myself waiting again. In the same ridiculous waiting room from hell, with no phone, no book and only official notifications around to read. I have read them all, yesterday. So I stared at the soulless walls and the soulless service representatives. Waiting … hoping. Tell you what, it worked! At least we hope it did – the application is launched, payed for and officially received, including our passports. As far as we can tell, everything was filled out correctly and we meet the criteria of permanent residency for New Zealand. Now all we need is confirmation from the embassy and our passports back in Java with the right sticker in it.

Thanks for a good time!

Thanks for a good time!

Earlier this day we caught up with Santosh when he was having breakfast thinking this would be our time to say goodbye for good. It was again great to meet up with him – only improved by the kick ass morning smoothies we got shouted. We collected more tips for our continued journey , including on for potentially after visa hell.

So released from the clutches of bureaucracy, we set out to have a look at Pandawa Beach. And what a bizarre experience it was. The beach at the southern end of the southern peninsula has only very recently been developed. Or say, they have started development. The infrastructure is ready, but the massive resorts are currently only outlines of leveled dirt behind the beach. A road has been cut into the cliff down to the beach, and while they were at it, enormous niches with statues depicting characters from the Mahabharata were set up along it. Down at the beach is an enormous car park and a row of maybe 50 warungs along the promenade. That is it.

I must admit, I am puzzled by what the appeal of the beach for these girls is

I must admit, I am puzzled by what the appeal of the beach for these girls is

That is probably also the reason, why the beach is currently mostly visited by Indonesian domestic tourists (One family we talked to was on a grueling 4 day trip from Jakarta). They were carted here by the busload. The handful of bule (foreigners) looked appropriately out of place.

Everything is sorted out at the beach, for a small fee. Deckchair and umbrella? 30k rupiah! Drink? Whatever you want! Boat hire, sure! Need to pee? No problem, 2000 rupiah! We ended up staying for an hours or so. Enough to have a swim. The mood was spoiled a bit when a bunch of university students from Java started filming us – for bragging rights I assume.

Statues in Bali are often "dressed", even on public buildings

Statues in Bali are often “dressed”, even on public buildings

After the beach, we headed west along the coast to find a place, but nothing really got us hooked. Plus Nina was craving some city life. So at 5 pm, we found ourselves back in Sanur. One thing has changed: Since it was so touristy here, we were able to book a room online for a very good price, $23 NZ. The Abian Boga Guest House even had a pool! The water was cool, to boot!

We were even happier when we found a laundry nearby that would do our washing over night. It was sourly needed. With all things set, we texted Santosh one more time. He had to work next morning, but in the end we arranged for one more dinner. He brought his lovely friend Lisa. We discussed where to go and it turned out that our hotel had a good restaurant as well.

We sat down to great food and had more great conversation. The biggest surprise came when Lisa asked if there would be Balinese dancing that night, and the answer was yes! So completely unexpectedly, we got to see our first two dances before dinner.  Balinese dancing really is something special – hard to describe but fascinating to watch.

Thank you to Santosh and Lisa for the lovely evening!

Day 108 – Visa matters

Coming to Bali meant two things: It is going to be more touristy and we will have to sort out some of our visas. Most importantly our NZ visa as there is a visa application center on Bali and immigration NZ had let us know via phone that we can apply there.

this is the "sandwich" Nina is talking about. Chocolate cookies for bread ...

this is the “sandwich” Nina is talking about. Chocolate cookies for bread …

Packing our things, we drove down to Sanur. There is a German consulate here which we visited first. Just to make sure we don’t need any temporary papers for the time our passports will be sent to New Zealand. Nah, all good, we don’t need anything but a receipt from the application center. Is there a chance that we could get a second passport, you know, to apply for a Pakistani visa? No, absolutely not, this is just for business people. *le sigh*

Rocking up at the consulate on our bike, had given us a lot of attention from the security people who recognized the license plate and gave us many thumbs up. When we left again, there was a guy waiting for us. He had seen the bike and wanted to talk to use as he himself owns an Africa Twin. Thus we met Santosh, an Indian ex-pat living on Bali and currently house-sitting for friends in the same street that the consulate was on.

To facilitate our conversation, we hopped into Café Smorgås where Flo had juice but I had the most delicious ice cream sandwich…maybe ever. 🙂

Extra lane for motorcycles.

Extra lane for motorcycles.

Despite wanting to talk to a fellow motorbike traveller, I got itchy as the visa application center was still on for today. So we made dinner plans with Santosh and left for Benoa Square which houses the center. There is a toll road leading around Denpasar rather than through it. It costs 4500 Indonesian rupiahs for a motorcycle which is about 50 cents and cuts out a fair bit of traffic. And the best thing: Motorcycles get their own separate lane away from the cars and trucks.

Applying for our visa was not as straight forward as we hoped it to be. First of all, the application center had no means of checking if we are eligible for the visa we wanted so wouldn’t hand out the form despite us knowing even the number of the form we needed. Instead, we had to email them. This email then got forwarded to the NZ embassy in Jakarta. Then we waited on their reply to be able to actually apply. We would have loved to just get in contact with the embassy in Jakarta but they have no public website or email address so this was not an option. We had to go through the application center.

the whole road is on stilts over the shallow lagoon

the whole road is on stilts over the shallow lagoon

In the end, we got the right form, filled it out, stapled our passport pictures to it and then waited. And waited. And waited. The computer system was down (which we had been told before) but apart from having to pay in cash (which we were told), there was actually no way to put our application through (which we hadn’t been told). Instead of communicating any of the problems to us, we sat around from 1.30pm until 5pm with an increasingly frantic member of staff who kept trying to put our application through every 10min.

In the end we had to leave without applying and the advice to come back tomorrow. All this waiting made me nearly insane but Flo kept his cool.

Hindu symbolism everywhere. Here, a roundabout

Hindu symbolism everywhere. Here, a roundabout

Back in Sanur, Santosh helped us find a room for our budget and then showed us around town a bit on the way to dinner. The room was in a sweet Balinese style homestay, and our room was all carvings and decorations. Later in town, I even managed to buy postcards.

Dinner was lovely in a warung makan that gave us our first taste of Java. It was well frequented by locals and you get great value for our money. Afterwards, we took the “scenic” route back which led along the waterfront and stopped for one more rounds of drinks at fancy place. Santosh was great company, and we talked about traveling, life in Indonesia and his own plans for a really cool trip.