JBR Bali 2-6 June ‘04
Hi..allow me to share my recent trip to bali along with my family (me, wife, daughter 4 y.o and granny). BTW, we're all Indonesian.
Day 1, June 2nd : Departed from Balikpapan (East Kalimantan) 11 a.m, transit at Surabaya and arrived at Ngurah Rai airport 13.40. Pretty much on time. The domestic terminal seemed quite though, but the good thing..sunshine..in fact..up until june 6..no rain at all in bali. Wait for about 10 mins for Yuni (contact me for her detail) to pick us up to Puri Santrian Hotel at Sanur. Yuni has helped me arrange to book this hotel and also suggesting the Biyukukung hotel in Ubud. Contact her if you need help for arrangements in Bali. She's been very helpful during our stay.
Arrived at the very nice hotel, we just spent the afternoon in the hotel pools. The deluxe room we took was very nice. The Sanur area seemed quite so does the hotel's occupancy that was around 50%. Later that night, we went to a small restaurant called Warung Pecenongan (Chinese food) in the Bypass road further NE of Puri Santrian.
Day 2, June 3rd : After having breaky at the hotel, we rent a minivan with the driver (I got this from the brochures in the airport, and we had been using that during our stay in Bali). So up we went to Celuk area to do some silver shopping and continue to Bali Zoo Park. Kay (my daughter) has had been talking about animals weeks before we arrived at the park, so no wonder she was very excited finally met the monkeys and all the gang.
After lunch, we gotta back to the hotel, for my personal ultimate reason to Bali is waiting..mountain biking in Bali. At 4 p.m I split with my family, they went out to the pool and the beach again whereas me and my bike got picked up by Pak Ktut Aryadi ( a mountain bike enthusiast as well). He brought me to his house somewhere in Jimbaran and within minutes, off we went into the bush just 5 minutes riding away from his house. We went up the Uluwatu hills and soon the view from the top pays the effort. Let me know if you want to know Pak Ktut Aryadi's contact numbers.
For about an hour we finally ended up in the dreamland beach, though we didn't take the off-road trails all the way to the beach (due to time constraint), Ktut said that there is definitely an off-road trail to the dreamland beach. Enjoyed the beach view from the cliff for about 30 minutes, we rode back into the bush again in the dark, helped a bit by my headlight and the full moon. Now, I wouldn't recommend anybody riding alone without a Balinese in the dark, particularly since there are so many dogs that I think only Balinese knows which one to avoid which one is OK to pass by. Ktut said the more remote an area, the more dangerous the dogs can be. Yeah, no problem Pak Ktut..I'd stick behind you though...(...)
Finally got back to Ktut's house around 19.30 and headed back to Sanur for dinner with Pak Ktut's family as well. The restaurant was.....nice with reasonable price. The day ended pretty early 2200...I just gotta have good sleep after the ride.
Day 3, June 4th : We had a relatively quick breaky for our driver Pak Ktut (another Ktut of course) was ready by 08.30. After checking out from Puri Santrian hotel, we worked our way up to Ubud by visiting the Galuh shop first. Now, this relatively big un-air condioned fashion shop claiming all items 50% discounted. Judging by the people and the queu time to pay, it certainly quite success. My wife and mom were in their 'Disneyland' for about 45 minutes before I had to tell them we gotta move on. Next stop was Pasar Sukawati (Sukawati market) where again the ladies disappeared for about an hour in the midst of the pasar. They returned back with a couple of bedcovers and purses. In this market, you gotta have a strong bargain ability though, if you want the lowest price. It turned out that the price between Galuh and Sukawati was not so much different, Sukawati even slightly cheaper (if you want to bargain hard). Finally we arrived at Biyukukung Hotel at Ubud around 1.30 pm Biyukukung Hotel (http://www.webaxis.com.au/biyukukung/main.html),..how lovely this hotel..small but you have the paddy field in front of your room and the pool also just next to the field. It has only 10 rooms which all are two stroreys except the suite ones ( 2 rooms). The upper storey is the bedroom with TV, AC, mosquito net, ph, minibar whereas the lower one is the bathroom and toilet. It's a bit tight probably for you guys the expats but the view and the quality of the room justified. I found it from the driver 2 days later that this hotel is almost always full and most of it from the walk-in guest. In the afternoon, we went to Monkey forest for about half an hour just to see how enthusiast Kay feeding in the monkeys with bananas. And after that visiting the Ubud market to look around and do some shopping. Planned to see the Barong show that night but Kay didn't like the idea. Ubud overall was pretty quite during that day.
Day 4, June 5th : Woke up at 5.30 and have a quick breaky (bread and tea). I bought the bread the night before since the breakfast in Biyukukung does not start before 07.00. Prepare my bike and make sure my friend Bob Dickenson also already wake up (he checked in Friday night straight from Balikpapan). By 7 am, Pak wayan Kertayasa from balicycling (http://www.balicycling.com) and his friend Pak Ktut (again, this is another Ktut) were ready to take us up to Kintamani to start the Batur ride. We arrived at Kintamani at around 8 a.m, still quite chilly that morning and no warungs were open. Briefing for 5 minutes, off we went the 3 of us down to Batur. Pak Ktut guided us circling the Batur for about 1.5 hours in relatively speedy speed. The road was predominantly asphalt with some section still in sands and dusty. I really hate to say this but I think it's really worth mentioning should you want to do the ride in Batur. The ride circling Batur to me and Bob was a TERRIBLE one for we had to struggle in front of or behind the heavy smoke trucks that taking the sands. We didn't mind doing the asphalt and the dusty trail, but it's really a frustating ride for you can barely enjoy the view and the freshness of air (the last one I doubt I felt it) because of the trucks. Man, I keep telling Pak Ktut and Pak Wayan (who had been following us with his 4WD machine), 'this is what we want..the offroad trail..not the roadie trail...and especially not with the trucks !' I was quite harsh (at least for Indonesian) to say that out loud, but I hope Pak Wayan and the gang taking it in a positive way that for running a mountain bike trail, the first 1.5 hours circling the Batur with trucks all over around you is absolutely sucks !
Anyway,..soon when we were at the other side of the lake (east of Batur), Pak Ktut then finally took us into the bush in Batur. We were in there for about an hour having fun with the trails. Single tracks all around with some sandy section, narrow drop-off and stepped trails. Some portion we need to push the bike up for it was too hard to keep riding it. Around 11.30, Bob challenged us to ride up back to Kintamani. I only managed to ride until about 300 m before the Kintamani main road due to my legs cramped and overcome my will to finish the ride up...(...)
We then had buffet lunch where my family joined us (they had been from Tampak Siring and Goa Gajah in their morning ). The buffet per person is 50K Rupiahs and the food is excellent. The restaurant is where we started in the morning (see Bob's picture with pak Wayan discussing the trail in my Batur ride link). Find the link in the link title.
After the lunch we headed back with Ubud on our bike again. Blasting off in the downslope road to Ubud (speed averagely 50 km/hr), we were able to reach Biyukukung Hotel again within one hour and 15 minutes. Had cold bintangs with the others while chatting on other trails up on the north bali for our next Bali visit. Bob and I agreed that despite the ugly ride with the trucks, the off-road trails in Batur is just too good to be ignored. We then say to Pak Wayan that hopefully he will have other longer trails for our next visit. My family didn't come back until about 4.30 pm which I've already taken shower and begun packing my bike. Kay and I then took a dip in the pool (see the pics : http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/thonee2003/album?.tok=pheXLYBBW_T5CttA&.dir=/5236&.src=ph), the view just gorgeous..the pool is 1.5 m in its deepest point.
Day 5, June 6th : easy morning for all of us,..well except for my family's packing arrangement. I had to split with them later in Surabaya for I would continue my trip to Bandung while my family went back to Balikpapan with Bob. The breakfast in Biyukukung to me is very basic..but that's probably understandable, the hotel is so small and what they sell is the room and view of paddy field. Good enough !
Checked out at 11 am, Bob already checked out an hour early for wine and harley's shopping in Kuta. The transfer to airport cost us Rp. 100,000 rupiahs using Kijang. No traffic at all. The check-in experience was also relatively easy. By 12.30, we're all taking off to Surabaya using Star Air. Until next time Bali !
There you go, my family short visit in bali early june. Apology for poor description on the journey and also my limitation on English. Nonetheless, may this report be useful for some travelers.
cheers,
tony
thonee2003 at yahoo dot com