Moving on…

There are essentials in life — water, food etc., and then there’s transport. Anyone who has travelled independently will know that transport becomes something that you need to learn where to source, will it get you where you need to go, and how to try and understand if you are paying a fair price.

Indonesia has great transport systems for all markets, the local, which is cheap and regular, and the tourist, which is more comfortable but much higher in price.

Now, I understand this! People need to make a living, but tourist transport always removes you from any interaction with people living in the area, who really are the most interesting people to talk to. Most backpackers have the usual polite chats (about how long have you been away, where have you been, and where are you going), which is nice, but you only find out about the ‘sights to see’… whereas some local knowledge can lead to finding some much more interesting things.

To complete our 2-day journey to Java, we did opt for the tourist transport to get back to Bali, as the local ferry wasn’t worth the effort and additional time.

To get off the Gili islands you have to take a few steps. The first was to get the local boat, direct from the beach over to the larger island of Gili T.

From there you pick up the larger fast boat back to Bali, which takes about 2-3 hours.

Arriving at Padang Bai harbour in Bali is an experience in itself. Before you’re even off the boat people are shouting at you to go with them. We had pre-booked a shuttle bus back to Kuta, as this is much cheaper. The local guys in the dock know this, so when you say you’ve pre-booked you will get all sorts of answers as to why that transport won’t take you.

We’ve landed here a couple of times before and know that you just have to unfortunately ignore everyone and walk to the office you have booked with. However, two people we saw didn’t know this…

First guy: a local chap shouted at him that he was from his pre-booked shuttle bus company, and told him to give him his ticket (he was supposed to take the same bus as us), off they went. We never saw him again! He would have ended up in a taxi, probably.

Second guy: was again booked on the same shuttle bus as us… he was talking to a taxi driver at the office where we were catching the transport. The taxi driver told him there was a delay and that the bus would take 4 hours (it takes 1), and it wasn’t leaving for 2 hours. Now during all of this the people we pre-booked our shuttle bus with were just standing there not saying a word. I said to the chap to just smile and ignore the man, we left 5 mins later and it only took about 90 mins!

We managed to make it back to Kuta in time for a beer while watching the surfers as the sun set. So, all good…

Day 2

We had seen on the internet that there was a public bus for the journey to the Bali-Java ferry. This was about a 4 hour journey and left about 5 miles away from where we were staying, so we couldn’t go there that evening to check the times and if it was running.

It was also impossible to get any information from the local tour operators as they would just say it’s not running, it’s dirty, they won’t take you etc.

So, in the spirit of what the trip is about, we decided to just turn up to a bus station that we weren’t sure still existed, to catch a bus that we weren’t sure was running, and if it was, what time it left.

After a quick taxi ride, and against all local advice, we arrived at the bus station (that did exist), and hopped straight onto a bus that was leaving in 5 mins. Perfect.

After the bus journey it was a quick ferry ride across to Java…

So here we are! Staying tonight in a hostel. £7 for both of us for the night.

https://www.thegoodfeeling.com/en/

Now, I suppose we need to plan what to see now we are here 😎