Kuta: You’ll never get out of here alive
Saturday, January 6th, 2007Ahh, 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.)
ismateo