In Reply to: Questions, Questions, Questions??????? posted by RinTinTin on Thursday, 11. November 2004 at 20:17 Bali Time:
We are a family of five, 11yrs, 14yrs and 19yrs and have driven in Bali for all our trips. We have driven around the whole Island, across it etc. We find driving ourselves great, its fun and you get to go where you want and not to some drivers friends place. The majority of the time we are outside of the Kuta/legian area and the traffic is no where near as bad.
You do need a good map, but we have always found that when we are lost the balinese are more than happy to help you. A lot of Balinese don't travel very far and the first time we drove was because we asked a driver to take us to Mount Kitamani, Singaraja and Tanah Lot and they went 'no, too far just go to Mount Kitamani.' So we walked around the corner hired a car, stopped for petrol and a map, drove to Kitamani, then across to Singaraja and then back over the mountains and to Tanah Lot in time for the sunset. We were totally hooked and will never do it any other way.
We use drivers and taxis for local runs but always drive ourselves when venturing away for the Kuta/Legian area