This may all sound a little sudden, but we have been gradually finding ourselves getting jaded by life on the road. Travelling is always more tiring then one expects, with the constant logistical challenges of researching and planning routes, transport, accommodations etc and keeping up to date with managing personal affairs back home (often from super-slow or non-existent internet connections) not to mention the physical challenges of living out of a rucksack for a long period. Oh yes - and then remembering to actually make some time to enjoy exploring the countries that we are travelling in and to record these experiences for posterity!
So, last week, as we were turning our thoughts to moving on from Hong Kong to South Korea and Japan before heading on to the west coast of Canada, we suddenly realised that this was becoming a chore and that we needed a time-out.
So after that news, let me tell you about the rest of our travels in Bali, since we left Ubud on 7th April. I hope you enjoyed Sue's debut post on the Black Beaches of Bali which started to paint some of our impressions of the island. It's fair to say that our 26 days here have been mixed. The popular impression of Bali, is probably of a tropical holiday paradise, but this is only partially true. As Sue said in our last post, there are very few nice beaches in Bali (and certainly nothing on the wonderful pristine sands that we saw in Australia and New Zealand). This is a densely populated working island and the tourists are generally bundled into luxurious resort enclaves with sculpted pools and manicured tropical gardens. We, of course, hadn't come here to just sit by a pool in a remote resort, which has sometimes made things difficult for us.
One good thing about the tourist infrastructure and the relatively small size of the island, is that it is easy and cost effective to hire a driver. For about £25, one can hire a driver for a full day and they will take you pretty much anywhere on the island. We met a young chap by the name of Made who we hired for 2 days: the first for a tour of the areas around Ubud (including a stop at the dramatic Mount Batur that Sue mentioned in the last post) and the second to take us away from the rice fields of Ubud and onto our second stop in the northern mountains.
We learned a lot from Made. Interestingly, he didn't tell us that his name means literally 'second born son'. We only sussed this out later when we asked someone why we were meeting so many Mades and Wayans - Wayan meaning 'first born son'!
Made did tell us that he had been married for 5 years, that he and his wife were still living with his family (as they saved for their own home) and that he was anxiously awaiting for news that his own Wayan might be on his way! He also told us that he had been very keen not to have to work in the fields and that many people saw jobs in the tourist industry as a way out of this hard life. Interestingly, he told us that ownership of the rice fields was split between small holdings and larger landowners. Larger landowners tended to hire peasants to harvest their rice crop, with the peasants taking 50% of the rice crop in return, in lieu of wages. This sounded remarkably like the system that existed in pre-revolutionary Russia that we had heard about earlier on our travels.
The rice paddies that we drove past with Made were undeniably beautiful: brilliant yellow green fields stepping down from hillside to valley floor, contrasting with the occasional splash of alternate colours from frangipani trees, marigolds and other flowers, the whole scene dotted with little Hindu shrines. The only irritant was that each time we passed a sight that might be of interest to a tourist (even down to a scenic view of a paddy field), we found a road block, with somebody official looking collecting money in return for a crudely printed ticket. We found ourselves constantly doling out rolls of low denomination notes as we travelled!
We left Made behind at our hotel, high in the hills at the village of Munduk. Our intention was to stay here for 4 nights and enjoy the cool mountain air and vistas and to do some mountain walking. The views from our hotel, were indeed magnificent, with views across to Gunung Agung (the highest mountain in Bali at 3,142 metres) and a number of other 2,000 metre + peaks. What we hadn't factored in though was the noise. We had expected peace, but instead we had a steady stream of motor bikes roaring up the hill passing within a few feet of our room. It is hard to describe the noise some of these bikes, with their 2-stroke engines and no mufflers, make. The closest I can compare them to is pneumatic drills on wheels! The noise was relentless, but around 2 am, the noise of the engines was replaced by barking dogs.
We braved it out for 2 nights here, taking a pleasant walk up in the hills to a waterfall that crashed out of a rock face to a plunge pool, but Sue was in a bad way after that, so we baled out and headed on up to the north west coast and the small resort town of Pemuteran.
Pemuteran is famous for its coral reef restoration project which is the largest of its type in the world. The reef in the area had been badly damaged by destructive fishing practices and sea-warming. The project has 're-seeded' the area with 'bio-rock' that acts as a scaffold around which new coral will grow. These bio-rocks are then charged with a low electrical current that encourages more rapid coral growth.
I hired a mask and snorkel and spent a couple of hours swimming over the new and old reef. The earliest bio-rocks are only a little more than 10 years old, but I could already see good new coral thriving and this had brought a great variety of different fish to the area. We have seen a lot of environmental destruction on this trip, so it was encouraging to see a good news story here and a win-win situation: environmental regeneration, enjoyment for tourists, local businesses thriving as a result.
We stayed in Pemuteran at a very nice home-stay. Home stay, simply means that the hotel is locally owned and managed: in this case by Tajuna and his wife, who also employ their sons, daughters, nephews and nieces in the business. We had a good chat with Tajuna and he told us that each year as the business had grown, he had re-invested the profits to build one more room. This year, he was building a new restaurant and spa treatment room away from the noise of the road.
What will always remain in my memory, though, was how nice they were to Sue. They immediately saw that she wasn't feeling well when we arrived and was struggling with the noise from the motorbikes. So they upgraded us at the first chance to a nice room at the furthest point from the road. Each evening for dinner, and in the morning for breakfast, they set us up our own table under a gazebo looking out over the swimming pool and to the mountains in the background. We felt very spoiled and hope that their business continues to thrive!
There was a limited amount to do in Permuteran though, so we continued eastwards along the north cost to another small resort town by the name of Amed. We had thought of staying a week here, but though we had a beautiful room over-looking the sea, we found that they were doing building work, which went on from the crack of dawn to sunset, with only small interludes of peace from the banging and drilling.
We had one more throw of the dice on Bali and decided to head for 4 nights to the small island of Nusa Lembongan. Here, we struck lucky, though first we had to endure a traumatic journey to get there. We got to the island OK, albeit a pretty rough ride, but once there we found that we weren't yet at our final destination and had 3 options to get to our village on the other side of the island: a 3 mile hike with our packs, on rough paths over the island's highest peak and in 30 degree C heat with high humidity; the same journey on the same paths clinging to the back of a small scooter or a transfer in a much smaller boat. We chose the latter and clung on for dear life as the boat was tossed by the waves that crashed on to the reef and our packs threatened to slide into the sea.
But the worst was to come as we got to our village beach. Our boatman had trouble stopping the boat on the beach and he lurched all over the place in the swell. I managed to get out with the main packs and told Sue to wait while I got them to dry land. As I came back, the boatman was forcing Sue out of the boat, with our day packs (filled with all of our electronics etc) one strapped to her front, one to her back. As she did this, the boat lurched again and Sue went head first into the surf. Fortunately I was almost there and was able to grab her and pull her out of the surf.
Sue emerged from this unscathed, though very distressed, and amazingly all of our electronics were also undamaged. My first instinct was to come to Sue's aid, my second was to threaten our boatman with all forms of physical abuse. His English had been very poor up to that point, but he now understood me perfectly and he fled the scene without collecting his payment! They say 'don't pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side' - we have now seen this working in practice!
Traumatic as this was, we now found ourselves in a peaceful haven, right off the beaten track and as we had expected to find Bali. We had a large bungalow to ourselves on a cliff-top looking out over a white sand beach with a salt-water infinity pool. The complex had been built quite recently, obviously with the expectation of more tourists coming, but for the moment it was quiet and relaxed and the staff couldn't be nicer to us.
One of the things that we liked most about Nusa Lembongan, was that tourism and local life seemed to mingle easily. There were a couple of upmarket resorts, a cluster of home stays and warungs aimed at backpackers, but around them locals worked in the fields as they always have.
We didn't do too much here, but on one day we hired a scooter and roamed around the island. Sue was terrified initially, but when she saw what mastery I had of the bike (OK she had her eyes tight shut!), she soon relaxed and we had one of the best days of our entire trip. The island was lush green, dotted with tiny villages, protected on one side by mangrove swamp and coral reef and on the other with white sand beaches, swept by surf.
We also ate as well here as we have anywhere in the world: with fresh fish pulled straight from the sea and onto our plates; fruit and vegetables mostly grown on the island and the chefs in the little warungs had perfected the use of all of the local spices.
So, we are now back safely on Bali's mainland (the way back from Nusa was less traumatic second time around) and will shortly heading to the airport, for our flight back into the northern hemisphere and onto Hong Kong. We will tell you more about this, our final stop, on the next post.
Will be great to see you again in the UK. Woking hasn't go the volcanoes or beaches mind....
ReplyDeleteThanks for making the effort on this blog, it's been nice to be transported away from home to so many interesting places.