Posted by KA on Friday, 30. October 1998 at 21:34 Bali Time:
We, I and my husband, came back last week from our 2weeks holiday in Bali. This was our 2nd 2wk holiday in Bali this year - that means I spent 23 days out of my 25 annual holiday for Bali. We love it that much!
Last time (in May), we spent 2 nights in Kuta (without much fun) and 12 nights in Ubud plus 1 night excursion to Toya Bunka for hot spring treat. This time we had Hotel Sanur Beach as a base, got a self-drive Daihatsu Feroza (big landrover type) as our transport, stayed 4 nights in Ubud, 1 in Lovina and 2 in Amed. It was again, wonderful.
Here I write a few notes which might be useful for somebody else on this forum.
1. Driving was actually a FUN. I don't even have a car in London and my English husband doesn't even drive, but it didn't take any time for me to get into "Bali driving". (thanks to a long posting on "how to drive in bali" by someone several months ago.) My main rules were: (I) leave enough distance from other cars/bikes in front so that I can deal with any stupid moves they would make (ii) don't get close to Kuta, (iii) don't drive after dark except on good conditioned main road (iv) use horn as often as possible. It was actually much less tiring than driving in London (or Tokyo) for me, and after a few days of driving, I was taking over any slower car/bikes in front like any other Bali drivers - mainly because our car was much newer/faster than other cars on the road.
2. Coastal road between Amed and Amlapura was pretty bad. Someone posted recently saying 'you don't necessarily need a 4WD for this route, but it's, I must say, rubbish! I only managed this route because our car was very new and it had very good suspension/brake. Although I was driving very slow, mostly on first / second gear, our body was off seats jumping up and down all the time. I'm not saying don't drive there since I enjoyed it so much (not sure about my husband) but only as an adventure! We also drove a part of the inland route near Amed which I thought so much more beautiful with postcard-like rice paddy scenery. If you want to try out this 4WD experience, I'd suggest you to take some packets of cigarettes and sweets. People living on the route are so poor that if you stop your car in a village, you might get surrounded by them asking for anything you have.
3. Not everything went smooth with our car. We broke one of the window (driver's door window) by forcing to close it. (it was due to half 'car's fault' and half my impatience.) This worried us very much because the rental car guys could try to charge us anything up to USD1,000 according to the contract. We drove back to Sanur and asked around the hotel staff what we should do. After several advise and overnight thinking/worrying, we brought the car to the local Daihatsu dealer and asked the cost. They looked at the car for 5 minutes and gave us a quotation 'new glass for Rp69,000 + labour Rp30,000' and told us it will only take 1 hour. We happily paid this Rp100,000 (7.5 pounds) and 3 days later brought back the car to rental people. We told them what happened, how much trouble we got from this 'fault', how nice we are to fixed it on behalf of them and paid nothing extra. Oh, maybe you would like to know how much we paid for the rental? After negotiation, Rp130,000 a day for 7 days from Sanur shop. Ubud people said we could have paid less.
4. We ordered a dining set (4 chairs and a table) from a workshop called Suma (on the main road between Ubud and Mas) and paid 5 million rupee including shipping cost. But we cannot recommend you anything until we get the furniture at this end.
5. Daihatsu dealer told us that cars are another thing to buy in Bali (if you are from UK or any other ripped-off country.) New Feroza with air-con, Cassette player and everything is less then 6 thousand pounds. (could be 4 thousand) Shipping cost is 2 thousand pounds. Apparently, on that day, a Scotch bought 3 cars from him to send back home. But not for mec. London streets are too narrow for Feroza. I'd rather buy cheap second-hand polo.
6. We briefly saw a WHALE swimming when we were having beach-massage in Amed. Local boys said it's quite common in rainy season (when it's cloudy.)
7. DimSum in Bali Dynasty hotel was super! The restaurant (Lotus Garden??) is soooo posh compared to London's equivalents. Any DimSum fan, treat yourself1
I guess that's about it. Please feel free to send me e-mail if you needed any more detail.
KA