Something about my trip in Borobudur – Bali, Indonesia

(ภาษาไทย) During our long holiday over the Songkran festival 2015, we planned to visit two cities in Indonesia!

I tried to set this trip so many times but Tim wasn’t too excited about Borobudur or Bali before. But once his friends had been to Bali, Tim wanted to go for his birthday trip! But Jam is always jaming the trip! I wanted to visit Borobudur first, so we set the trip up for 2 cities in one week!

11 – 13 April : Visit Borobudur and Prambanan temple in Yogyakarta (Jogja city) and
13 – 17 April : Visit Bali (Kuta Beach)

Indonesia is made up of about 18,110 islands, with a large Muslim population (only Bali has a majority Hindu).

Credit: http://www.freeworldmaps.net/asia/indonesia/map.html

Local time in Indonesia is different among the islands (GMT +7 thru GMT+9). The time in Jakarta is the same with Thailand but Bali is faster than Thailand by an hour!

Flights:
Unfortunately, we don’t have a direct flight from Bangkok to Yogyakarta. You can fly from Bangkok to Jakarta or to Bali and then take a domestic flight to Yogyakarta.  We flew with Garuda from Bangkok to Jakarta to Yogyakarta and to Bali.  The Garuda Airline is the flag carrier of Indonesia, it was our first time to fly with Garuda and it was nice!

For our trip, we flew from Bangkok to Jakarta and then to go Yogyakarta for two nights, then we took a short flight from Yogyakarta to Denpasar(Bali) for 4 nights. Bue when we returned to Bangkok, we flew direct from Bali on the last day by Thai Airways.  Indonesia is about a four hour flight South of  Thailand.
Airlines operate flights to Indonesia:
Thai Airways : Bangkok to Jakarta and Bangkok to Bali (Denparsar) – You need to buy the domestic flight to Yogyakarta if you want to visit Borobudur
Garuda Airlines: Bangkok to Jakarta,  Bangkok to Bali and Indonesia domestic flights
Air Asia: Bankgok to Jakarta and Bangkok to Bali (Denpasar), also some Indonesia domestic flights – We are not just a big fan of Air Asia, too complicated booking!

Visa?
For Thais – just passport is good! But Americans require a Visa. We had our messenger get Tim’s visa in Bangkok, it was 50USD (they required US money!). When we got to Jakarta, it was a little confusing to get to the immigration line but it was not that bad. We just had no idea what line they wanted us to go to as they kept pointing us to the Visa on arrival line (we tried to tell them that we already had the visa!).  Btw, Tim’s buddy (from the US) flew from Bangkok to Bali, and they got visa on arrival at $25-$30 and he said it was easy!  AND it was the same line!!!  So we really didn’t save any time, and we spent almost double for the Visa by getting it ahead of time.

Indonesia Money!!!
Tim was excited to get a Starbuck coffee at 52,000 Rb on our first arrival!!! And Guess what? I spent one million (rupiah) shopping every day!

The exchange rate is hard for us. All of our tour agencies preferred US dollars (cash), they don’t like the money transfer to any bank accounts.

But when you shop for the local stuff, they sell in rupiah.

Our 1st Hotel in Yogyakarta:
We stayed at the Phoenix Hotel and it was a really good deal for the suite room. The hotel is very nice (decoration/service), perfect location for us to walk to eat and to the night market.

And it’s about 25 minutes away from the Airport, about an hour away from Borobudur, and another 30 mins away from Prambanan Temple.
In the same area of the Phoenix Hotel is the 101 Hotel, The Harper Hotel Aston (We had dinner here one night at Roaster & Bear)…
But if we go back there again, we still want to stay at The Phoenix Hotel 😉

Our hotel in Bali : Sheraton Kuta Hotel
Remember there is more than one Sheraton in Bali and the one that we stayed for this trip is at Kuta Beach. It’s a new hotel right next to the “Beach Walk” mall. It was a nice location but I can’t figure out why they don’t have a 3rd floor button in the elevator where our room is on the 3rd!    The hotel is new and clean but I don’t think the hotel is friendly for elderly with all the stairs to and from breakfast and the beach. And we are already old!!!

The hotel is very good location for Kuta beach, you just cross a small road to the beach. All the coffee shops and restaurants are surrounding the hotel (Hard Rock, BubbaGump (taxi), Tony Roma’s, Starbucks, Coffee Beans etc.), Great WiFi, good security and thoughtful staff.
I was only a little disappointed that my TV remote was malfunctioning for the sleep timer, it seemed strange because it was such a new hotel, and 2 telephones in the room are not working.  We had to walk to the lobby to get the bellboy for check out.

And I don’t like the toilet slide glass door, I think I tried to walk throught it couple times (it’s slide between toilet and the shower room)  It hurt!  Bummer!!!

Maybe the first hotel in Yogyakarta ruined us, as that one was really nice!

So, if we go back to the Kuta Beach again….we might want to try some other hotel like Mercure, Rama Resort which are in the same area.

Local Tour agencies:

Once we had made up our mind, I started my search for local agencies in both cities on internet. I picked 2 of them for our trip this time…

For Borobudur: I’m glad that I found this tour agency, he was nice and polite and made great arrangements with local tour guides for both temples, and they are all very good English speaking.

For Bali, I thought I found the tour agency but he is really a car service only. He offered a very good rate for driving us around place to place for the whole trip in Bali. I just had a motion sickness for the first 2 days when I rode with him.

I think he is non-smoker, and he is very punctual. I’m not sure that it’s about languages or culture, everyday he kept sending me (on Line) that he can’t park in the hotel lobby when we were 5 minutes late. It’s ok to send just one time but not every day like that…

*If you are looking for local tour/driver and you are ok with what I reviewed, please email me for more info.

Note: As I mentioned about smoking in Indonesia, people smoke everywhere and all the time (more than Hong Kong!). When we walked in the night shopping street, we had to jump in the a/c shop where nobody will smoke to take a big break for fresh air!

And it’s weird for me when I see girls with a nice dresses selling cigarettes at Kuta Beach (In Thailand, we will see only the Beer girls dressing up like that!).

It’s not wrong for them to smoke in their country but we both got sick when we returned home and we coughed for a week!

Indonesia languages:

I think Indonesia has as many local languages as they have islands! But there are some common words that they use throughout the country, at least for both cities Jogja and Bali.

“24 Jam”? I saw this a lot and I was so surprised!!! Jam in Indonesia means “o’clock” or “hours” (that’s why they call me Mr.Jam!)

Timur is my friend’s name, it means “East” in Indonesia 😉

What to buy in Indonesia?
In Yogyakarta – Clothes, Silvers and Masks!   I enjoyed trying and shopping for local dresses.  The local guide told us that the local people will wear the traditional clothes at least once a month.  So they didn’t make it to sell to tourist and that’s why it’s pretty cheap.

I would say that I like to shop in Yogyakarta more than in Bali. It’s much cheaper in Yogyakarta!
Bali – Batiks, painting, wooden carving.  Most of the shops are around the temples, we also like to shop at Ubud Market.

Taxi in Indonesia

We got a chance to try the “Becak” a few times when we’re in Jogjakarta while vsiting Borobudur.
Becak is the three-wheeled bicycle-rickshaws. Unlike the version found in Thailand where the driver sits in front of us. But here we sat in the front!!!

You can negotiate your fare, from our hotel to the night market we paid about 60,000 RP (round trip, the driver is queing right in front of our hotel and they have the hotel name on the becak).  But one time, we rode back from the market to the hotel, they asked for 50,000 RP (one-way).

There are also taxi’s in Indonesia. Our local driver told me that the taxi driver always offers to take you to the sevenir shops. We’re glad that we didn’t take any taxi in Jogjakarta. But in Bali we took a taxi for a short ride.  The Baliness taxi driver told us to use ‘Blue bird taxis” only as the others refuse to go on the meter!

Blue Bird taxis have working meters and most drivers can be trusted.  The meter starts at 7000 RP (21 Bath).

Here’s how we broke up our 7days/6nights in Borobudur – Bali, Indonesia this time:

We had so much fun on this trip, and we absolutely plan to come back to Bali. I will have a new list to visit like, Pura Ulun dana Batur Temple, Pura Tirla empul, Taman Ayun and diving Tulumben with an overnight  stay in Lovina beach (where you can see the dolphins!)

Summary of  expenses (per person) for this 6N/7D trip :


*excluded Bali Temples: about 200,000RP/USD16/THB500, shoppling/eating about 100USD/3000THB/day

Note:
1USD: 32 Thai Bath : 12,800RP
Traveled Date 11 – 17 Apr 2015

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