Kuta: You’ll never get out of here alive
Ahh, travel. Is there anything better than being on an island in Indonesia (Lombok) and wanting to get to another island (Bali), an island a mere 20 km away, and not being able to? Indeed, after NYE, I was on my way back over to Bali, to continue on around Indonesia for the next two weeks, before catching my connecting flight to Australia on the 16th… except I couldn’t get off Lombok. The ferries weren’t running. There’d been some heavy weather and the seas were choppy — indeed, a similar ferry to the one I wanted to get on sank off Java on Dec. 29 and lots of people died. So: safety first. I am down with that.
Travel fact: When in Indonesia, do not get on a ferry in stormy weather.
All of this meant that, after having a tremendously fun and relaxing week, I left Gili Trawangan and landed on Lombok, and ran right into the midst of a chaotic nightmare, where no one knew anything about (a) if the ferry actually might be running today, (b) when the ferry for certain will be running again (“maybe this afternoon!”), and (c) what would be a cheap alternative to a ferry — like, say, a flight. I didn’t have any really pressing concerns, but I knew a couple folks who needed to make connections in Bali and Jakarta and elsewhere. And there were many more like them. Drama! Yeah, two days of waiting for some guy to make the decision whether to send the ferry or not, two days of hanging around Mataram, the biggest city in Lombok, a place with all the personality of a drill bit. (i.e., it was boring… aww, forget it.)
Okay, that’s not fair. I did have a nice time hanging out at the mall — the mall, as in the one — which featured such highlights as a McDonald’s, a Swensen’s and massage chairs. I was with some of the peeps from GT’007 (i.e., Gili Trawangan 2007), and we were just hanging around the mall, trying to look as teenage and disaffected as we could (this town was boring!)… and a group of college kids came over and started talking to us, wanted to practice their English, make new friends, etc. And before we knew it, they’d convinced us to come to the photo store with them, to preserve the moment in pictures. So, I and four other travellers posed with these four college kids in a studio — and they said they can’t wait to put the picture up on their walls and tell all their friends about us. Forever immortalized on Lombok.
Now back to the greater drama… namely, that I was still trying to get on the ferry. And, keep in mind, this ferry usually runs all-day, every day, every one-and-a-half hours. So, you can also imagine, I’m sure, the scene at the docks if the ferry has not been running for four days. Cars and trucks and big rigs and people and chickens and dogs and more people and horses and horse-drawn carts and even more people — everyone, just sitting on the dock of the bay, waitin’ for the ferry way, wastin’ time.
I didn’t spend a lot of time at the docks. Instead, I went to the mall. What else does one do on Lombok? Lots, I’m sure, if you knew you could get actually off the island at some point.
So, okay, anyway — I made it back to Bali. Short prop-plane flight for $30, after patience had run thin and some friends had figured it out themselves. Easy, “why hadn’t we done this to start with?” never entering into our minds because that would have been simply too frustrating to contemplate.
Hence, no worries. Back in Kuta — what’s next? Right, let’s hop another cheap flight over to Java, where I can travel for about ten days before catching my connecting flight to Australia on the 16th — wait… what do you mean my flight on the 16th has been cancelled?!?!? This route has been discontinued, as of the 12th?
Well, shitballs.
Indeed, my connecting flight to Australia is no more. Which has thrown my travel visions into even more of a gobbledyfuck. The upshot is that I’m on standby on every flight from Bali to either Brisbane or Melbourne from now until the 16th — there are five, and they are all booked solid. Every flight to Oz on this Indonesian airline is full, it seems. So what’s really probably going to happen is: I’m buying my own flight to Oz on another carrier, and getting a refund on my previous ticket — sucks, since the new flight is going to cost more than the refund. In essence, I’m paying more for a flight I already had, and it’s enough that it looks like I’m going to have to take a pass on Borobudur, Jogjakarta and other parts of Java that I hoped I could see… Dammit.
Ahh, travel. I’m trying to take a zen approach — you know, TANBE. Or, as the Tao Te Ching says, “A good traveller has no fixed plans and is never intent upon arriving.” But Lao-Tzu never had to stay in Kuta for days and days, trying to figure out how much actual time he has before his next flight, whether he even has that next flight, and trying to see if he can get out of the place for awhile or if it’s simply not worth it to try, and so ends up just hanging around the tourist trap, stuck in the trap, as it were, doing his best not to spend money and getting harassed every two feet by someone selling t-shirts, jewelry or a massage.
Also, my camera’s still not fixed.
But: Australia, here I come! (Hopefully.)
Tags: Bali, ferry, Indonesia, Kuta, Lombok
ismateo
Hey there cousin,
travel safely and I hope to catch up with you sometime in ’07 back stateside to hear all about your crazy adventure!
So we wait in suspense to see if Matt makes it to Oz… oh Matt, tell us what happens. I soak in the anticipation.