Car from hotel in Makassar
to airport - 250 000R including all the tolls.
Flight Makassar to Bali
5:40 am with Citilink– approx. 2 300 000R for two adults – 20 kg luggage
included.
Car from Bali domestic
airport to Legian – 200 000R
Grand Kumala Hotel - standard
room - 384 000R
Relaxation massage Sicilia
Spa 112 000r for 1 hour
THE JOURNEY
We started the day with an
early morning flight from Makassar to Bali.
We woke at 3:30am and Arus
picked us up at 4:00am. The journey to the airport took about ½ hour as there
was no traffic.
At the airport we checked
into the Citilink counter. They were quick, efficient and professional. The
fastest and most hassle free check in I’ve done at an Indonesian domestic
airport. We had plenty of time for coffee and croissants.
Nyoman picked us up at
Bali domestic airport and drove us to the Grand Kumala Hotel in Legian.
We checked in to the hotel,
got our gear out of storage and had a 2nd breakfast.
This was an eating day as
we were keen to eat more western food and we were also over-tired. Pizza, Greek
salad, garlic bread, etc. Haha
We had chores to do as
well – cash money and buy supplies for Balian from the supermarket.
We relaxed with beers on
the beach for sunset and earlier, I had a relaxing massage at Sicilia Spa.
The following day, Nyoman
pick us up to drive us to Balian.
Arus’s friend arrived at
10 am in Bira to drive us to Makassar.
The trip was long but we
broke it up with a tasty lunch and drink. I wasn’t feeling too well so we had
to make a few urgent toilet stops along the way.
We finally arrived at the
Makassar Golden Hotel. We checked in and after looking at our room we moved due
to the lack of sea view.
We called Mina who was
working about being our sponsor for our visa extension. She couldn’t make it
but she arranged for her best friend Kiki to help us.
THE PROMENADE
I liked to have a morning and/or afternoon walk along the promenade.
MAKASSAR GOLDEN HOTEL
Well, this hotel wasn’t up
to expectations.
The good – the room/s were
big, the bed comfortable, the staff very good and there were good views from
restaurant.
The not so good- the room was in need of maintenance, the
pool was dirty as it had no filter, bags of rubbish and pool equipment and
chemicals were lying haphazard over the gardens, the building was falling apart,
outside noise at night was loud and the breakfast was ordinary.
There are much better
hotels in Makassar. Don’t stay!
MUSIC OR NOISE
On our first night, music
started thumping a deep bass at about 11pm and continued to 2 am.
The next night, we were bombarded
by two lots of music till a ridiculous time in the morning.
We moved rooms to one
facing away from the city. Finally, a good night’s sleep!
THE VISA EXTENSION PART 2
We had already started on
the visa extension that we got about a week ago. It was possible to get the
next extension so seeing that we knew what to do we thought all would be okay
...
Kiki (Mina’s friend)
arrived at 10 am to our hotel and then we caught a car to the Immigration
Office. We were fairly confident we knew what to do.
At the desk Lia, the
Immigration Officer informed us that we
needed a signed form from Trully if we wanted to change sponsors. Oh dear. We
couldn’t contact Trully so Lia contacted her for us and she agreed to sponsor
us again and the passports would be ready tomorrow. Lia was annoyed with us
until we all realised that the problem was with Trully’s mobile number as you
needed ‘whats app’ to ring her and I didn’t have Whats app on my mobile.
Anyway, all was sorted
then in the afternoon we got a message from Lia and Trully that the Immigration
online system was down and our visa couldn’t be processed until it was fixed.
Oh dear!
Nothing we could do until
all was good. We put all this aside and carried on with our holiday.
The following day, we
contacted Trully and the system was back on line and the visa extension would
be ready tomorrow.
The next day, we met up
with Trully at our hotel. Trully had our passports and completed visa extension
and we paid her 500 000r for visa fee each and 500 000r for Trully’s effort.
All good now for the next
seven weeks!
FOOD
We had a great fish dinner
at the Noddle House and a free dessert and ice block. The staff were lovely and
the owner friendly and generous.
There was a good coffee
house just down from our hotel. We sat there many times enjoying hot and iced cappuccinos.
The warungs along the
promenade had delicious snacks and small meals. I loved the hot corn on the
cob, the avocado with chocolate syrup juice and the hot rotis smothered in palm
syrup and melted chocolate and sprinkled with Milo. So yum!
THE TRANS STUDIO INDOOR
AMUSEMENT PARK
We caught a grab to the
Trans Studio Mall for the indoor amusement park. The entry was just over 100
000r and it included all the rides. There was no crowd and no queues.
The best rides were the mirror
maze, the tower, the ferris wheel, the water boat ride and the roller coaster.
It was fun and later we
walked around the shops in the mall and had lunch.
DINNER WITH MINA AND REVAN
On our last night in
Makassar, Mina and Revan wanted to us to dinner. They were at a conference and drove 2 hours to
get there. We had such a good night eating, chatting and laughing.
Motorbike hire – 100 000R
with a full tank of petrol
Boat snorkelling tour –
500 000R
Entry fee into Bira Beach area
– a one off fee of 20 000r per person
THE ARRIVAL
It was a long drive from
Makassar to Bira. Arus was a careful driver. The roads were good except for a
section just after leaving Makassar.
We stopped in some town
for lunch and coffee.
Ar Bira, we stopped at
Riswan Homestay and met Riswan himself. The rooms were small, clean and basic.
He also had another guesthouse ‘Puri View Inn’. We drove over to the other side
of Bira to look at the rooms. It looked okay and finally he showed us one more
room which was very large, tables and chairs, a good size balcony and a view
over the ocean. The room itself was made entirely from varnished timber. It
looked great so we took it and said our farewells to Arus.
On another day I checked
out a couple of other4 hotels. They also had good rooms but they were twice the
cost.
RISWAN
Riswan was the owner of
the hotel. He had a dry sense of humour.
One day he told us that hundreds
of his chickens just died. He also owned a chicken farm. The cause he feels was
the stress from the latest weather extremes of cold nights and hot/dry days.
THE BEACHES
Bira Beach
I started most days with a
stroll down to the beach and a swim. The water was a bit chilly and it was very
quiet. I would stand on the beach watching the boats as the sun rose between
the hills and buildings.
During the rest of the
day, the beach could be quite crowded with Indonesian tourists from Makassar.
They would swim fully clothed. I always use to think that later that would be
so uncomfortable but they seemed to enjoy themselves so much.
Quite often people on the
beach would ask if they could have a photo of you and them. The asking of the
photo was amusing, It varied from very polite English and a prayer gesture with
their hands to a grunt and a abrupt come here wave. So now I have so many ‘friends’.
The beach at Bira was
white sand and very soft and fine. The waves were small and gently rolled
towards the shore. There were many boats moored just off to beach which offered
services to tourists.
We would walk along the
beach and pick a quiet and secluded spot to sit. The beach at this end was
lined with a 4 metre high limestone cliff. Jacinta would sit in the sun while I
sat in the shade of the cliff. A nice spot, where it was good to wade through
the water or sit and read.
Towards sunset, we would
walk down to the beach. I would have a swim on the beach followed by a beer
together while sitting on the sand watching the sun disappear below the
horizon. Nice!
East Beach
This was a wide white sand
beach. It was best at high tide. It was palm fringed with a few shaded spots
but watch out for falling coconuts. We would either sit on the beach in the
shade of the palms or on a nice wooden
platform when we ate food from Kaluku Cottages.
Bara Beach
This beach was on the
other side of the bay visible from Bira Beach. Generally, I think it was a
pretty beach though the road to the beach was very rough.
THE SNORKELING AT BIRA
It was an effort to get to
the drop off of the reef from the beach as the water was fairly shallow during thee
lowering tide. I maneuvered between coral outcrops and slight indentations in
the rocks to get to deeper water. I was well rewarded once past the shallow
waters with clear water, heaps of fish and coral, schools of fish and three
turtles. I drifted along with the current then had a difficult time getting to
shore as the water was even shallower. J
On another day, we had a
snorkel off the beach. The tide was higher than previously so getting out to
the drop off wasn’t as hard. We drifted with the current and saw heaps of fish
and some pretty coral.
SNORKELING BOAT TOUR
We organised our gear for
a snorkeling tour then set off for the beach to meet Oudin (the skipper of the
boat) at 8am, He readied his boat and off we went. It was a hard trip to the
uninhabited Goat Island. The wind was strong with a metre swell running against
us. The boat bumped and heaved along for about ½ hour in the blustery
conditions.
We moored on the sheltered
side of the island. The water was crystal clear, calm with a slow drift
current. Perfect. The corals were pristine and there was an enormous amount and
variety of fish and no one else was there. It was one of the best snorkels I
have had ever.
Oudin took us around to
the wild, windy and wavy side of the island to show us a monument on the
island.
Next, was Liuang Island,
which is opposite Bira. He beached the boat and I walked up to the guesthouse
on the edge of the beach to check it out. The rooms were good but ita bit much at 500 000r plus 50 000r per
person for meals and 300 000R for a boat drop off and pick up.
I had a snorkel while
Jacinta warmed up and baked on the island beach. Once again the water was clear
though there wasn’t as much coral or fish. Still, I saw a lot of clown fish.
We picked up Jaciinta from
the beach and motored back to Bira Beach.
THE MOTORBIKE
I went looking for a
motorbike to hire one morning but no luck. Everyone kept saying ‘tidak ada’,
not have but try Warung Bamboo. Eventually, I got to Warung Bamboo but thee
only bike they had looked very dodgy with bald tires and being dirty. I came
back to the hotel empty handed. Haha!
We decided to walk to the
Indomart just outside the main drag of Bira. Along the way, a friendly guy said
hello so I asked him about hiring a bike. Yes he said with a choice of two. He
hired his bike to us and we drove the rest of the way to the Indomart where we
stocked up biscuits, fruit, etc. We were pretty lucky as I nearly didn’t ask
him.
FOOD
The food at Bira is not
good. Not that it is unclean, it is just that there is no where to eat. BUT
there are heaps of warungs and restaurants all selling basically instant
noodles. No fruit, no variety!
At first, we ate a lot at
the Warung Bamboo. The food was okay but generally, it was a noisy place and
the tables were always dirty.
There was another restaurant
on stilts to the east of the beach. The cooking was done by a lady from Timor.
The food was good and the servings were big. The place was clean and it had an
excellent view. This was our favourite.
We also drove the
motorbike to Kakulu Cottages at East Beach which had excellent meals and a
great view over the beach.
There were a couple of
larger hotels with restaurants but they always seemed to be closed as they were
mainly dealing with packaged Indonesian tourist with a set buffet of dishes.
Why was the food so poor?
Who knows?
We cooked our own
breakfast at our hotel – weetbix, coffee and boiled eggs.
THE HIKE
I took the motor bike for
a ride over to the start of a nature hike. It was a pleasant hike with lots of
butterflies and calls from distant and well hidden birds. The lantana was thick
along the track edge making it difficult
to walk. I got a number of scratches. At
one point, there was a massive web across
the track with a huge spider and a number of babies on it.
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