Tag Archives: Sanur

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 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.