Trying Freedom

Title aside we’ll kick this one off with having my moped delivered in Seminyak, just because of how baffling it was, I got a message saying that the driver was at my hotel and to meet him in the parking area, which was all fine, the main thing I struggled with was when I asked what the rules of the roads were, he basically said follow what everyone else does and hide the helmet if you think it’ll be stolen.

Since I’ve already been asked separately, I’ll explain that the flower on the front isn’t how I like to decorate all my vehicles, but instead an offering to the gods which are found all over Bali, not sure why they felt it needed to be specifically there but I found out more about this later in the trip which I’ll cover in a later post.

Fortunately I’ve had a few motorbikes in the UK so I set off to Ubud after downloading the offline Google maps feeling pretty confident I’d make it, or at least determined to leave, little did I know that the main roads were going to be so full and poorly built you’d basically be fighting for a place which wasn’t a pot hole and as soon as you go off the main roads it’s much the same story but more terrifying, adding to that the low season held up to its name and I was drenched with nothing but a massive blue poncho under the seat to help.

As soon as I started to get near to Ubud, I knew immediately that this is what I left the UK for, the days before had me thinking that I’d made a mistake and this is what travelling was like we’re behind me, or for now at least. With a quick stop on route for a smoothie and coffee accompanied by a local Bali dog I made it to the new hotel in one piece, albeit my fancy new poncho had turned me into a moving sauna.

The new hotel, Kerman Suite was lovely and I’d highly recommend it, easily beating the last hotel which on the night before checking out, I found out had at least one mouse sleeping in the mattress with me, a privilege that was also more expensive for some reason. Now I was staying in rice fields and I felt like I was experiencing the real Bali.

Since I’d already lost most of the day travelling the rest of the day was pretty relaxed, going into the centre of Ubud to visit the palace and find some food before spending the rest of the evening planning the next few days I had here.

Also, a couple of things I realised today, a card wallet is useless here, roughly £50 is the equivalent of 1,000,000 IDR and the notes go down to 1,000 increments, basically meaning if you have a card wallet whenever you need to pay for something small like fuel, which by the way 2/3 litres is plenty and cost around 30,000 IDR, you spend ages literally throwing money around. Also, an ATM and a foreign currency card such as Monzo seems to always give you the best exchange rate.