Our four islands holiday (8): Bali
After three nights in the city of Yogyakarta and a total of five nights on the island of Java, today we moved to our second Indonesian island and the third island of our holiday: Bali. Flying with the state airline Garuda on a Boeing B737-800, it was only a bit more than an hour to hop from one island to the other, but then over two hours to drive from the airport to our accommodation in Bali.
Bali is a small island by size (only 16th largest in the country) and population (about 4.5M) and it has four smaller islands. It is the only Hindu-majority province in Indonesia.
Bali is the Indonesian island most visited by foreign tourists with 80% of the island’s economy coming from tourism. However, most of the population and the tourists are to be found in the south of the island – where the bombings of 2002 and 2005 took place – and our accommodation was well away in the east.
Kaura Bali is located in the Manggis area of the island and it is magnificent facility for tourists. Accommodation is in individual units. As Tess described it in a text home: “Sort of glamping, sort of electricity, sort of a bathroom, large canvas tent on a wooden deck with a tin roof and comfy double bed.” For me, a key feature was that there was WiFi everywhere.
In the morning, our schedule had what was described as “a bike ride”. Neither Tess nor I had ridden a bike in years and she was anxious about the venture. As it happened, she was not well and to miss the adventure. I was relaxed about riding a bike again, but surprised and a little alarmed to find that we were using electric bikes.
First, I was driven from Kaura, located at about 300 metres, to the top of the escarpment, located at about 600 metres, and then introduced to my bike. It proved to be the toughest bike ride of my life.
I’ve never ridden an electric bike before, let alone one with five speed settings, down a narrow, winding and undulating 18 km (11 mile) road with potholes, precipitous drops, and traffic coming from behind and on the opposite side and all in 30C heat. Whenever I dared look, the views were spectacular.
I only fell off once, when a particularly sharp bend coincided with an especially steep hill and, being near the end, I was really tired.
We stopped to visit a bee farm, developed and operated by a hearing-impaired couple with a great story and amazing honey. The latter part of the ride passed through picturesque rice farming scenery on the way down to sea level where we concluded our ride at a place called Virgin Beach and had some lunch at a beachside establishment named “Gusri Cakta Relax Cafe”.
I had been collected at 10 am and I was dropped off at 3 pm, feeling exhausted but triumphant. Tess was recovered and in good spirits.