Getting Around Bali

One of the biggest challenges I’ve had to overcome in Bali is how to get around. Unlike in developed countries like England, where there are numerous modes of public transport, train, tram, bus, ferry, tube…in Bali there are none of these things.

photo by martin hopkins on flickr

Most people get around by motorbike- which costs around 500,000 Rupiah per month, or 50 US dollars. This is the cheapest and most efficient way to get around the island. Steve quite happily bikes around all day, but I was a little more apprehensive about it- not only are my parents both in the medical profession and have seen some horrific accidents but I have also not actually ridden a normal bike since I was about 8 years old. I don’t know why I haven’t ridden a bicycle since then, it’s just never really come about- we’ve never gone cycling on family holidays and I’ve never really needed to use one. People say you never forget how to ride a bike, but I really do thing I could prove that saying is wrong.

So initially I rented a car for three days- I walked around all day in the blazing heat looking for a car but most of the rental people laughed in my face: “Don’t you know this is high season?”. I eventually found a man who drove me on his bike to his friend’s business and I signed up for a Suzuki Jimny. We checked the exterior of the car, a few bumps and scrapes here and there but nothing major, I handed over the money and that was that. However when I got in the car the seat belt didn’t work, the speedometer didn’t work and when I drove it on the freeway I felt the brakes didn’t really work either. The Jimnys are cheap at around 80,000 Rupiah per day but the downside is they’re like tin cans- they look a bit like a 4 x 4 but they certainly don’t do the job. I wasn’t happy driving it so I returned that one the next day.

So then I tried to learn to ride the motorbike…but first I had to actually get it out of our gates and off the drive. I’m only small and pushing it backwards over the hump in our drive was certainly an effort. After about twenty attempts I wheeled it onto the road. To accellerate you turn the handlebars towards you, but where most tourists go wrong and where I went wrong is that when you panic, you grab onto the handlebars and just accellerate even more. I immediately acclerated onto a mound of gravel and had to be helped by a bunch of workers to get it off again. I blamed not being good at riding the bike on my size, I’m only tiny, and as soon as I said that I saw a ten year old kid riding by on one with no trouble at all.

I had heard about the bemo which is like a local bus, a mini-van that ferries locals around for an affordable price, but when I asked about it in some of the tourist information places no-one could tell me anything about it. Frustrated and confused I said, “Can I ask you something then… If you didn’t have a bike, how would you get around?” The man in the tourist information replied, “By motorbike”. So there you had it.

In the end I rented a newer car, a 2005 Suzuki Karimum. I paid a little bit more- 2.5 million for the month, but it’s a pretty nice car with air conditioning, no problems and the man changed the plugs and got new tyres for me. It gives me the freedom to go places by myself without having to get Steve to take me everywhere and I don’t have to worry about my safety as much.

Related posts:

1. Living in Bali