Denpasar to Amed, Trafficking in Tourists

I arrived in Bali with 5 free days ahead of me. After arriving in Denpasar the night before very late and catching the first half of the Champion’s League final and a few hours sleep, the plan was to get out of the noisy chaos of Bali’s largest city. Equiped with a 10 year old edition of the Lonely Planet Indonesia straight out of the St. Louis Public Library, I spotted my destination.

According to the book, the tiny beachside town of Amed lay on the northeast coast, quite secluded but surrounded by some of the best dive and snorkeling sites on the island, and also a stone’s throw from the largest mountain/volcano in Bali, Gunung Agung. The only question was how to travel the 150 or so miles to get there. Without a reliable bus service, one option was to rent and drive my own transport. With the previously stated Indonesian rules of the road in effect, I wasn’t about to consider that. I could have hired a taxi to take me all the way, but ruled it out on account of that breaking the bank, likely a hundred dollars or more. So I opted for the public transport method, an auspicious start to a seriously long day.

What is a Bemo?
One of the fascinating things about almost any Southeast Asian country is the unique public transport vehicles. The Tuk Tuk in Thailand, the Cyclo in Cambodia, the always extravagant Jeepneys in the Philippines, Double Deckers in Hong Kong and of course the Bemos of Indonesia. Here we have an older model extended van, dusty vinyl bench seats on the inside with little padding and certainly no AC. Used mainly by locals, the traces and scents of agricultural products, livestock and gasoline is readily apparent on most Bemos. And the thing about Bemos is when you locate the one that you thinks is going to your destination, they will sit and wait at the origin until the Bemo is almost full before departing. There are no schudules, planned stops or strict routes for that matter. And after today, I learned that usually, there is not even a defined destination.

I got an early enough start and prepared for a long hot day. Acting on a tip from a neaby travel agent, I walked up to the corner to locate a waiting Bemo which I was told would take me to Ubung bus station where I could board a bus directly to the transit town of Amlapura then on to Amed. I skeptically got on the Bemo and told the driver the name of the bus station. A smaller Bemo, I was among several local women hauling their treasures of the day and we were quickly away. A short 20 minute ride to a bus station, not my bus station. As always in these situations, the tourist was quickly approached by another driver who promised to take me straight to Amed for an exhorbitant price. I quickly walked away, found a motor scooter driver and had him drive me 5 minutes down the road to the correct bus station, Ubung. Two rides down, who knows how many to go…

After circulating through the bus station, I was finally pointed to a waitng Bemo that would take me to Amlapura, another small town from where I could get a direct ride to Amed. This being a larger Bemo, I was only about the third person waiting, so we were in for a wait for remaining passengers. With the hour wait, I managed to locate a power outlet and with a newly purchased converter, I was able to charge my blackberry, find a connection and check the news of the day. Finally, with almost a full Bemo, we were off. We headed north into the countryside, city fading into suburbs, then to fields, mountainsides then coastline. I tried to make friends with a couple of small boys who got on at one stop, one of whom was holding a box of dull knives. Soon the passengers started getting off and soon I was alone on the Bemo. We rounded a corner, the driver yelled to the driver of another Bemo parked on the side. It seemed I was being bartered for. I was soon ejected from my original Bemo and passed to the waiting Bemo. Ride #3 to #4. I managed to only give the driver about 80% of the agreed upon rate, which was about 5 bucks. Our destination in this Bemo was apparenlty Amed. My skepticism remained. This was a long bus ride, I even managed to catch some uneasy shut eye, sleeping through the endless bumps in the road, the rude honking of horns and steamy afternoon heat. When we got nearer to Amlapura, the driver stopped just behind another parked Bemo. Hmmm, I know this drill…

Sure enough I was passed off to another driver, paid the previous driver less than the agreed upon amount then negotiated hard core with the new driver. We were close enough now to Amed that I was sure this, #5, would be my last ride of the day. We took off into the foothills, traversing winding roads. All of a sudden we were coming down a hill, a gorgeous volcano in the distance, rice paddies all around and a crystal clear view of a sparkling ocean straight ahead. This was Amed, my home for the next 5 days. The stress of 6 or 7 hours of hectic travel and haggling faded into utter relaxation as I arrived on Amed beach, secured a cheap room to stay in, filled my stomach with a hot meal and a cold Bintang beer. The sunset over Gunung Agung was, well…

Indonesia

The conference for work ended on a Wednesday and Thursday I was to travel from Hong Kong to Surabaya, Indonesia. The very cheap China Airlines flight I had booked showed a connection in Taipei. Little did I know there was also a connection in Singapore. All told, the flights took about nine hours when a direct from HK would have been maybe three. But hardly worth the expense. I arrived close to midnight in Surabaya and was scheduled to depart Indonesia exactly seven days later. Instead of a running play by play of the trip, I chose to summarize the week’s adventures more topically.

Road Rules, Volume 1

Some of the great adventures to be had in countries such as Indonesia occur on the back of a scooter, riding a lumbering ferry or stuck on a stuffy slow bus. Traveling overland in a country where reliable public transport is few and far between and where traffic laws don’t really exist can be daunting, time consuming and most certainly a frustrating experience. Yet it is highly entertaining and definitely the best way to see the people, places and things that define a country.
Planning a trip with this in mind, my flight into Indonesia brought me into the country’s second largest city, Surabaya, Java. My flight back to the states was from Denpasar, Bali: 300 miles, one island and 7 days away. What is typically a 4 or 5 hour easy drive on a luxurious interstate in the US is quite a bit different in any developing country.

My plan was to spend a day or two at Mt. Bromo, a scenic volcano and national park area in between Surabaya and Bali. After spending a sticky night in a cheap hostel, a helpful gentleman named Danu loaded me up on the back of his scooter, took me around town to few stops and then to the bus station.

Danu and I tackle the streets of Surabaya:


At an extremely chaotic bus station, here is my view of what happens: People who have their destination in mind walk down an aisle of buses and screaming gentlemen, all trying to get you to ride their bus, or the bus company that is slipping them a few rupiah to recruit passengers. All the while for some reason, someone on stage is singing loud horrible Indonesian music. In my case, Danu told them I wanted an air conditioned bus to Probolinggo, from where I’d get another ride to the top of the volcano. It was a rather pleasant and uneventful ride, until I got to within a few blocks of the bus station in Probolinggo and was prompted off the bus for the transfer to Bromo. Sure enough, they dropped me at a special ‘tourist’ office obviously friendly with that bus company. My new good friend Koko told me I could wait an hour or two for a public bus take to two and a half hour ride up the mountain or I could pay a little bit more and hop on the back of a scooter for a 45 minute upward burst. So I took the bike.

Flying up the mountain on the back of a bike:


About halfway up, the clouds closed in and it was soon raining. Luckily I had a jacket to protect my bag, but no cover up for me. It was soon a heavy downpour. A picnic it is not when the rain is hitting your face and eyeballs on a scooter going 50 mph. My friendly driver seemed not to mind either. Soaked to the bone, we passed the rain line, everything was dry, I had not a dry spot on me. I was dropped at another hotel that was obviously friendly with the tourist company. I had opted to pay for a standard room but suspected I was given an economy room, most likely with my good friend Koko pocketing the difference. One must learn to take the good with the bad, make lemonade and give in to the fact that gentlemen will do what’s needed to work the tourists to make a few extra bucks. I’m not a sap, but I’m also not one to make a huge stink over a couple bucks here and there.

After about 24 hours spent exploring the volcano and surrounds, it was on to Bali. I was told the bus would leave from Probolinggo at 12pm, take the 8 hour bus ride/ferry connection to make it to Denpasar, Bali by 8pm. What followed was just incredible. With a few other European tourists, we waited in the hot afternoon shade for the bus…11am…12pm…1pm…finally 1:45, the bus came. We hopped on, only to be taken to a bus repair station, the gas station and finally on the road out of Probolinggo by 2:15. The busiest thoroughfares are narrow two lane roads traversed by everything from massively overloaded big rigs down to the piddliest motorbikes…and more motorbikes. Here’s how we navigated the Northeast Java coastal road: We’d approach a slow moving truck. The bus would straddle the center line so the driver could see oncoming traffic, which was usually significant. If at some point there was a break in traffic and the drive could see far enough ahead, he’d swerve the bus into the passing lane, oncoming motorbikes be damned, accelerate like hell and swerve back into the lane usually just in time to avoid another oncoming truck. All the while, motorbikes would pass up on the right or left, every single vehicle honking almost constantly to notify others of their presence.

When a motorbike would be coming from a perpendicular street and entering the crowded coastal road, driving etiquette was not to stop, wait for a break and pull out, but to make a tight turn onto the dirt shoulder of the road and eventually inch over onto the pavement and into the flow of traffic. At one point I was looking out the window, and man driving a scooter with a woman on back (both dressed in traditional Indonesian Islamic garb), approached from a cross street. The man pulled the bike out almost right in front of the bus. We swerved a bit and the bus driver threw him a honk. The man over corrected and dropped the scooter on its side, the man and woman went sprawling! Horrified, I looked back and tried to see if they were okay. But we sped ahead and I was left to guess at the result of the minor crash. I also noticed that not one other person on our packed bus had been looking and noticed the accident.

A monkey does a nice pole dance at a rest stop on the road from Surabaya to Denpasar:


The ferry we had to take on this journey would take us from the island of Java to the island of Bali. By 9:30pm, we had finally reached the ferry. We had to wait about a half hour then they drove the bus straight onto the ferry, then the five Europeans and I went topside to exchange travel stories during the leisurely hour long ride. Back on the bus, for the home stretch to Denpasar. We reached the city by 12am only to have to pile in the back of another van to get to the tourist area where there were some welcoming, cheap beds for some tired souls.
Transport in Indonesia had already exhausted and awed me, and some of the more interesting rides were yet to be undertaken.

More fun to come on the roads of Indonesia.