Category: Indonesia

Breakfast was bustling in the dining room today, and I have no idea what that means. Are people continuing to travel, or are they stranded here and looking for a soft place to hide out until some of this passes? 

The restaurant hostess asks again if I need a taxi. Her husband drives a cab, and she has asked every single day if I wanted or needed transportation. While I am sympathetic, I find it a little disconcerting that she does this when her employer also offers transportation.

As for me, I finally succumbed to the sales tactics of the driver outside of the hotel who has asked faithfully, three times a day since my arrival. He dropped his airport price slightly…still making a healthy profit and I get to spend the day here poolside instead of arriving at the airport 11 hours early. 

The guests I’ve spoken with are leaving, or trying to leave. I feel for the French couple who were quoted 4000 euros for an early flight home. My young neighbours next door leave for Australia on Saturday and have graciously agreed to share their balcony (and toilet) after I check out.

I haven’t seen Steve from New Zealand in a day or so. A strange dude. He was obviously upset and wanting to talk about losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the markets, about his ex-partner who was running guns to Papua New Guinea behind his back, about a second business venture that failed. There was a vague suggestion about losing a family along the way, but he didn’t elaborate.

The guy from Finland who now lives and works in Moscow arrived three days ago and is now facing the grim prospect of having to spend two of his three weeks of vacation back home in isolation. I don’t know why he left in the first place, given what’s happened in the last week, but I thought it best not to ask.

There is a new sign at reception asking guests to keep their distance. The friendliest people in the world are pulling back.

Walking back to my room after breakfast, four young men jump up from their makeshift seats at the side of the road, holding out laminated signs and urging me to book a tour. I signal no, and there is a sense of quiet dejection. Desperation perhaps. There are virtually no guests in Amed these days, and those of us who are left are clustered around mobile phones and iPads, watching this thing play out in our home countries, worrying about inserting ourselves into the most dangerous place to be right now…on an airplane.

My flight is still scheduled to depart early Friday morning. I will know for sure at 00:45 Wednesday when I attempt to check in with Garuda International. I was quite concerned about the Tokyo to Montreal leg given yesterday’s border closure in Canada, but it looks like the flight is close to full. Time will tell if this works out.

Sitting here in 30+ temperatures, in virtual isolation due to the lack of guests, I feel fortunate. Of course, it could be a fool’s paradise given that there doesn’t appear to be much testing going on in Indonesia. I see more masks now than a few days ago, but still not many. I have a supply for the journey…mostly to help others feel safer around me.

Had a long chat with the young man who cleans my room yesterday. He says that hotels all along Amed Road are closing, throwing people out of work. So far, he has a job, and I know he is worried that that will change.

I always thought that a trip to Indonesia would be unforgettable. I was right.

It looks like the Coronavirus has won. With another five weeks left in my planned visit to Indonesia, I have decided to pack my bags one more time and head to the airport. I do this with a heavy heart. 

For one thing, I don’t particularly want to be cooped up in a tin can in the air for hours. I don’t want to leave this beautiful island or these equally beautiful people who rely so much on visitors for the necessities of life. And I’m not looking forward to experiencing the end of Canadian winter, quite possibly the hardest time of year for me. Oh yes, and 14 days in self-isolation.

But the handwriting is on the wall. The options for getting home were already dwindling but with yesterday’s Canadian government announcement, they will become scarce. I tried for three days to reach Expedia to discuss options to no avail. I can’t reach my travel insurance company to see if any of the additional costs will be covered. My Skype calls don’t work half of the time and the other half result in my being on hold without ever reaching a human being. Better to grab the bull by the horns.

Of course, having booked a ticket by no means guarantees that I’ll actually board a plane on Friday. But I have to try.

The pool of perspiration at my feet is fast becoming a small lake. Our walk this morning was, if anything, hotter than other days as there is no cloud cover. The basil lime squash drink with which I rewarded myself was sublime…an astonishing shade of green which matches that of the rice fields around Ubud in the centre of the country..

Buddy with the taxi – the guy who asks a minimum of three times a day if we want to go somewhere – is on the job early today. I don’t think he understands walking at all. On the other hand, I can’t blame the guy for trying to make a living. His shiny white SUV sits idle most of the day. The virus panic is really hurting these people.

I rented some snorkel gear and explored the coral reef in front of my hotel yesterday. The lack of a sandy beach is a small price to pay for the vibrant and abundant marine life not two metres from shore. Giant, sapphire blue starfish, countless varieties of triggerfish, Moorish Idols, different butterfly pairs, cleaner wrasse, neons, parrotfish, trumpetfish, sergeant majors, territorial damselfish. I think I even spotted the Hawaiian state fish – hummuhummunukkunukkuapuah’a. Say that three times quickly.

We continue to get daily downpours, and sometimes, like yesterday, the rain continues into the evening. I think the duration of the rain is a bit unusual for this time of year, but this area did not receive normal rainfall amounts in January, so this is needed to fill wells. And did I mention, it’s a warm rain.

6:30 a.m. at a busy Sanur intersection waiting for the shuttle service to Amed, the conversation went something like this…

“I don’t care that there’ll be other passengers.”

“I don’t care that there will be stops along the way”

“No, this shuttle will not take hours because it’s going to Ubud first”

I had them on the run, and it was all over when we got down to price…$17.50 for the shuttle versus $50 for a private taxi. They had no comeback…

I’ve been in Amed on the northeastern shore of Bali for a few days. It is quaint and laid back…all about diving, snorkeling, yoga, happy hour and dining. The local warungs serve cheap, delicious food, and there is a smiling person every metre or so who wants to give you a lift somewhere whether or not you want to go.

It is also hot, with humidity close to 100%. Ann (a friend from Dartmouth) and I had to cut our morning walk short today. After a scant five kilometres, we were wringing out our clothes and had exhausted our water supply. The only thing I can do with any enthusiasm is swim. Both ocean and pool are refreshing and empty given the ridiculous impact of the Coronavirus. I feel badly for these sweet people who depend so much on tourism. China is their main market, so you can only imagine how much this hurts.

Tomorrow, Ann and I will do our bit by hiring a car to see some of the local temples. Negotiations start this evening.

I feel a change in the group dynamic today. Those of us continuing on from Bali are keeping our distance from the toxic Canadian couple, and the other woman involved in the spat a few nights ago is no longer with us. Perhaps we can get through this part of the tour without tension, just like normal adults.

Lombok is significantly different from Bali. Predominantly Muslim, it is also more conservative. There is more petty crime here as well – purse-snatching, etc. Not high by Western standards but it is almost unheard of on Bali, so a little more awareness is recommended. We are in Kuta, Lombok which is quiet and laid back, the antithesis of Kuta, Bali which Sandi says is so changed by tourism so as not to be Balinese anymore.

It was already 32C at 9 am. After a yummy breakfast of turmeric and roasted apple French toast, fellow traveller Veronica and I ventured in to town which our guide says resembles the Ubud of 30 years ago. It feels familiar, similar in many ways to certain parts of India. It is also unbearably hot, so our shopping excursion didn’t last long. 

Next, a dip in the ocean now that my feet are feeling better. The water was a little murky due to the rising tide but heavenly nonetheless. Didn’t spend long at the beach; it feels like what I imagine the inside of a microwave to be like. Liz said the feel-like temperature is 48C. 

So I am plunked under a tree in front of the hotel pool. Water is cool. Blessedly Canadian cool. 😎

This is my fourth small group tour with G Adventures. While it isn’t my preferred way of travel, there are many advantages, and I have seen and experienced things that would have been difficult or impossible to organize on my own.

But there is a down side. There are many personalities with which to contend, and sometimes things break down. This happened last night. A fight broke out on the dance floor of a cool little bar across the street from our beach bungalows. Two women. Canadian. Apparently, the days when we can be smug about our reputation as being “nice” are gone.

As these two older women who should know better hurled insults at each other, the younger crowd of Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians tried to calm things down. The reggae-influenced band members played on, likely all too familiar with the ugly effects of too much alcohol. This sober and embarrassed Canadian woman called it an early night.

Balinese people, on the other hand, seem to have cornered the market on sweetness. Take for example the doctor from the clinic down the road. Instead of me going to her, she made a house call! Turns out that one of the blisters sustained on my first walk on the beach more than a week ago is now infected which accounts for the swelling, pain and redness. So I’m grounded today and banned from the water for the next few. Sigh.

We were five minutes into the walk along the wooden platforms in the Monkey Forest when I felt the weight of a medium-sized monkey land on my shoulder. Don’t panic, I reminded myself. Sandi said not to panic if this happened. But I really didn’t expect it to happen, and my heart was beating like a jackhammer.

It may have been a female because she was showing intense interest in my brightly-coloured bracelets. Of course, it could also have been male. These are, after all, monkeys. I don’t even like monkeys particularly, ever since that mugging-for-oranges incident in Rishikesh.

Monkey Forest is in Ubud, centre of spiritual tourism on Bali. Way too busy for my liking, but I did manage to get some laundry done and we had an amazing meal in an authentic Bali home the first night, so no complaints. 

The tour so far has exceeded all expectations, and we still have the beautiful island of Lombok ahead. Part of the group will be departing on Sunday and six new people will join us, so the energy will change. I will miss Chloe from London who is afraid of everything, Elizabeth from Mississippi who is always wandering off mysteriously on her own and returning with a satisfied smile on her face (she says it’s massages…), sweet Sam from Australia whose rafting guide fell in love with her and proposed marriage on the spot, Andy and Thomas from Germany who can usually be found in the pool with a beer.

A prolonged tropical downpour started not long after our arrival in Candidasa. This cancelled our rooftop yoga session with Sandi, so we all piled into the pool. Nothing like being in water in a heavy downpour, especially since we’ve been battling temperatures in the high 30s and 100% humidity

And the monkey? it finally gave up on getting the bracelets off of my arm and leaped into a tree, where it belongs. Much too close for comfort.

I don’t generally take Canadian money with me when I travel. As a matter of fact, I rarely have much money in my wallet period. So the last-minute decision to stash $100 CAD (part of annual Costco rebate) in my backpack is one of those little blessings that the universe doles out from time to time.

I researched money and ATMs and found they were plentiful in the tourist areas of Bali. And that information was spot-on. Stopped at the first in a line of them at the airport, however the machine simply ejected my bank card and told me to have a nice day I stood in line at the next machine but when the guy in front of me couldn’t get money, I decided on a whim to exchange my CAD cash so that I could pay for the taxi (which by the way the hotel forgot to arrange leaving me to the devices of the international taxi mafia). 

Yesterday, Maria and I pulled ourselves away from the pool to hit the cash machine early afternoon before it ran out. Maria gets money. None for me, and not even the courtesy of best wishes or a smiley face. 

It appeared that contacting Tangerine with my travel dates was just another one of those wasted phone calls where I try to do my due diligence and they pretend to listen

So of course I have to buy more Skype credits. And remain on hold for much longer than the promised “2 or 3 minutes” only to hear that it’s the middle of the night there and the systems are undergoing maintenance and maybe I should try another bank or perhaps my card will work tomorrow once it has been “refreshed”. 

Gotta tell you, not feeling that refreshed at the moment with Tangerine. This isn’t my first time at this rodeo. They may soon find themselves fresh-squeezed .

Update: The “refresh”worked! I have money. 

There’s a brisk breeze blowing outside my ninth floor window. It’s warmed up somewhat since the -18C temps of early morning, yet the scene below still resembles a concrete slab of Canadian winter under cloudless blue sky. 

Denpasar, Indonesia, on the other hand, had temps in the low 30s the last time I looked, with feel-like temperatures in the +42C  range. I wonder how a body reacts to temperature swings of approximately 60 degrees…

It was a pleasure seeing my backpack again…a bit of a surprise really given that I was ready to sell it when last I unpacked in early September. Interesting how a few months of routine (more or less) can make me yearn for uncertainty. New cultures and languages, making new friends, avoiding the local taxi scams. Being robbed by taxi drivers is a universal experience, kinda like music and love and wondering how Donald Trump got elected.

I leave for Bali Tuesday evening. Wonder of wonders, I am mostly packed. This has never happened quite so early before, and I chalk it up to being sick with a cold. Given the state of travel in Asia due to a certain virus, the very last thing I want to do is show up at a health check point with a fever and chills. So I am isolating and self-medicating and putting good thoughts out into the universe in the hopes that the headache eases and my voice comes back. I don’t pray, but if you have some spare time…