I was considering a choice of eight different cars.
Three Japs, two Germans, a Swedish, a French and a Brit.
Quite a mix. The only common aspects were:
I liked the aesthetics
Enough power for my regular motorway commute, without being excessively thirsty
Comfortable bucket/sports seats – which seemed far better for my back problems than standard cars
The contenders were:
Peugeot RCZ 1.6T 200
Nissan 350Z 3.0
Mazda MX-5 Mk3.5 2.0
Volvo C30 2.5
Mercedes SLK 1.8
BMW Z4 2.0
Toyota GT86
Jaguar XF 3.0D
Unfortunately the GT86 was ruled out almost immediately. I spent 15 minutes wrestingly with the seat controls in a Toyota showroom before giving up – I just couldn’t get comfortable. I didn’t even take it for a drive. Admittedly it was out of my budget too – but it’s probably one of my most desired cars at the moment, ever since I first saw one; and if it drives anything like the old Celica, I’ll love it.
But my poor back was protesting; I needed something more comfortable.
The Nissan 350Z next then. This was my second fave in terms of looks. But it was also the least practical – I wasn’t going to get a great amount of miles per gallon out of it’s 308bhp engine!
Still, I spotted a perfect example and managed to arrange a lengthly test drive. For a good 30 minutes or so the owner took me for an impressive test drive. It felt comfortable; my upper and lower back were nicely supported.
But when it came for me to take the wheel – disaster.
Somehow, in the drivers seat, the seating position meant that I was putting pressure on my injured coccyx (tailbone). It wasn’t even the ‘new’ or more recent back pain (which had stemmed from sitting poorly due to the original coccyx injury) but the more acute ‘pain in the arse’ (almost literally) original cause of all my back woes.
It wouldn’t do; I tried all sorts of seat combinations, but something about the overall seating position of the car meant that with my hands on the wheel and my feet on the pedal, my tailbone took too much of my weight and yelled out in protest.
I’d liked the car a lot; ok, I prefer the ‘kick’ of a turbo rather than a linear powertrain, but the three hundred odd horses on tap pretty much compensated for that. I even looked into the possibility of fitting different car seats in it, but realised that they it could be difficult and costsly, and there were no guarantees it would work.
I went back to the RCZ. I’d already had two test drives, and couldn’t quite make my mind up. It only had a 1.6 engine, but the turbo charged ‘standard’ version still packed 156bhp, and felt nice and nippy. The 200bhp version was even more fun. And it’s quirky looks and funky interior held my interest. But was it comfortable enough?? Maybe. It was more comfortable than the Leon… but it wasn’t as comfortable as my MX-5.
The main problem though was that I was having a image concious issue – I didn’t want a Peugeot! I didn’t want a French car!
My girlfriend suggested I try a Volvo C30. A Volvo?!? But they’re for old men!
Well… not really these days. Especially the C30. But then is it getting a bit too girly, or a bit too much of a Teenage Vampires car??
Volvo C30 – for Vampires only?
I figured it was worth a shot, and test drove a 2.5 turbo model.
I was impressed.
The seats were awesome; very supportive. The 220bhp engine pulled aggressively and eagerly. Handling – not bad. Not bad; but it felt a little heavy, a little ‘high’, somehow. It was trying to be sporty… but not quite making it.
Ultimately I decided that it wasn’t really the car ‘for me’, despite it being a damn good little car. I respected it.
Then I drove a Jaguar XF. Silly choice really, after deciding that the Volvo wasn’t sporty enough – the Jag is a huge beast! But I was tempted by it’s luxury – surely this would be a comfortable and practical car for the commute? And the 3.0 diesel boasted around 260bhp yet could still get around 40mpg – very tempting!
To get one in my price range though, I had to look at high mileage models. I found a beaut in a gold colour with 140,000 miles on the clock. Too many? Hmmm. The motor was a proven solid lump (Ford engine) so should be good for much more. I took it for a spin.
First point: they’re all autos. I much prefer a manual. Yet it has the flappy paddles to be able to downshift and have some fun when you require.
And fun I had. After being stuck in a traffic jam for 20 minutes, we finally got onto some back roads and let rip. She flew! Ok, there was the slight hesitation from both the huge diesel lump and the turbo, and the auto box – even with me manually flicking down with the paddles – but I could live with it. The growl from the engine was incredibly satisfying too.
What I couldn’t live with was it’s sheer weight & size, and the terror I felt going through the corners at speed.
Yes, it gripped well, but it still felt like a elephant on roller skates whizzing through a narrow canyon.
Perhaps I’d get used to it… as we worked our way back to the dealers, the traffic built up again, and I found myself getting irriated trying to squeeze it’s bulk through the narrow streets and gaps in the traffic.
Truth be told, I much prefer smaller cars.
And suprisingly, I wasn’t finding the seats very supportative – my back was aching after our 45 minute spin.
Another one ticked off the list.
What about an MX-5?
I didn’t mean another 20 year old MK1 – I was on my fifth and (hopefully) final! The gear ratio, small engine and thin soft top meant it wasn’t suitable for my lengthly motorway commute; too much loud high rev howling for a relaxing daily journey.
But what about a more modern version?
I’d hired and driven a MK3 when I’d taken the Transfagarsan Highway through the Romanian Transvaal mountains a few years before. I’d found it underpowered, as the MK3s are significantly heavily than the original MK1. I double checked though; it seemed I’d hired a 1.8 model, and there were 2.0 models available.
Would a newer, more powerful, more modern geared, improved softtop be suitable? I’d read that wind noise was much less.
Only one way to find out.
I found a suitable model at a dealers about 40 mins from home on a bright Saturday lunchtime and headed over, to be greeted by a rather lovely 20 something lass who took me out for a spin. Trying not to be distracted by her chatty flirtatiousness and shapely legging clad legs, I tried to concentrate on what could end up as Maggy the Sixth.
I loved it.
The seats were just as comfortable as it’s predecessors.
The engine was eager and compensated for it’s weight gain over it’s earlier brethern. It even made a nice noise.
The gears were better spaced… but…
Not enough. I hit 70mph and she was stil revving highly; not as much as my 20 year old beloved (and I’ve talking about Maggy now, not the hottie beside me) but it was still going to prove inefficient on a motorway run, and annoying – yes, the wind noise was reduced, but not so much.
If something happened to Maggy… and I had a sensible commuter car… then yes, I’d have one of these. But to have two MX-5s, even with their differences, wasn’t really the answer.
Six down (although I was still considering the RCZ at this stage), two left.
I found a suitable Mercedes SLK 200; the 1.8 supercharged model, in Derby. It was a 2008 model with the slight facelift and the improved 184bhp, up from 163. I.e. not particularly powerful compared to some cars I’d been looking at, but it was small and light.
What concerned me was it’s ‘German-ness’ – every German car I’d driven had lacked “soul”. I was also concerned by the thinness of its sports seats; the shape would be good for my particular back issues, but they might be too firm.
I slipped into the seats and felt like Cinderella’s foot must have felt slipping back into that lost glass shoe – it was the perfect fit.
I took her for a spin.
And soon had a huge grin planted all over my face!
It was so much fun. The little Merc was a German with a wild side! The handling was swift and responsive, the supercharged engine eager and nippy. Sure, it lacked grunt at the top end – but would suffice for the commute. The hard metal roof meant there was no road noise issues either.
The problem was, I didn’t want this car.
Well, not this particular one. It was way too much (14K – I was looking more at 10, 12 at a push) and the wrong colour.
So I started looking around…
Disaster.
The pre-face lift model was all I could afford. But it was nowhere near as pretty, and potentially underpowered.
DAMMIT.
Back to the drawing board?
No: one more option: The BMW Z4.
I found one very local to me, at a bargain price… 2.0 engine in a car that size… this had to be a go-er!!
So, I’d made my mind up to get rid of the practical, efficient diesel hatchback after only a few months of ownership.
It wasn’t quite as efficient as I’d hoped – particularly on the commute I was taking regularly, and I was finding the seats quite uncomfortable. It was starting to have a few age/mileage related issues too. And she was hardly a looker.
But I’d decided to not rush into it this time, and do my research.
The Peugeot RCZ had caught my eye. If I was willing to overlook the fact that it was French, then it seemed a very tempting choice – 44 or 42 mpg from a 156 or a 200bhp engine – rear seats (small, but many of my previous cars had zero back seats), decent boot space, and quite exotic looking.
I took one for a test drive, and liked it.
But did I like it enough?
I’ve driven too many cars for a 10 minute test drive, bought them, and then found annoying characteristics. I needed a long test drive.
I managed to get a 20 minute test drive. But this was the 156bhp model and think I preferred the 200bhp version; I needed to compare. But the nearest in the spec I liked was over a 100 miles away. And pricey.
I was also worried about my back.
I’d been having some problems due to an old back/coccyx injury, my long commute and the utterly useless office chairs at work. I’d started the ball rolling with the Health and Safety people who were supposed to be getting me a new chair, but the usual inefficient bureaucracy & red tape were causing delays and I still had a crappy chair, and my back was not very happy with me.
Hopping into my 20 year old MX-5, with it’s snug sporty seats, I was comfortable.
So perhaps sporty, bucket type seats helped my back more than the rather non descript seats in the Leon. The RCZ seats were rather sportier – but I wasn’t convinced that they were comfortable enough.
Perhaps there were some other options?
Over the next few weekends I test drove an additional seven different cars.
I’d decided that fuel efficiency and practicality weren’t the biggest factors after all, and added some less sensible cars back onto my ‘desired’ list. The cars I drove were:
Nissan 350Z 3.0
Mazda MX-5 Mk3.5 2.0
Volvo C30 2.5
Mercedes SLK 1.8
BMW Z4 2.0
Toyota GT86
Jaguar XF 3.0D
Yes indeed – 5 of those don’t have back seats and hardly met my new ‘sensible’ mindset to cars. But it’s incredibly rare that I need them; I’d borrow the girlfriends RAV4 if required.
Oh, and I took out another RCZ – just in case.
In truth, I didn’t test drive the GT86 in the end – I just sat in one. And unfortunately knew that it would be no good for my back.
Plus it was out of the price range!
Nissan 350Z – a sensible car option?
Some only fit in the price range (£8-10K, £12K at a push) by having high mileage/older age.
After a great experience in Bali we headed home, via a long stop over on the Borneo island, in the country of Brunei.
On Sunday morning we landed at Brunei airport. We’d spent a couple of hours in the transit area on the flight over, but had a 10 hour layover this time – so we’d booked a guide for the day to show us around one of the richest countries in the world – as there’s only about 50 taxis in the whole country!
We purchased our visa on arrival at the desk for (if I recall correctly) 17 Singapore dollars each – the Singapore currency being exchangeable with Brunei dollars and us not being able to source any Brunei currency before travelling. We then met our guide Violet at arrivals.
She was lovely, and spoke excellent English. It soon transpired that she’d studied at University in our home town of Nottingham and spent several years there and one year working down in Cornwall at a pharmacist, but had decided to return home due to missing her friends in both Nottingham and Brunei and not finding work in the Midlands. Although she had lived most of her life in Brunei and made an excellent tour guide, her parents were from Malaysia, but of Chinese descent.
The day tour of Brunei is pretty standard. It’s quite a small country
Jame’Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque
and there’s only so much for a tourist to see. We started with a trip to the Jame’Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque. This huge building was very impressive, with some fascinating architecture. We took off our shoes and donned long robes, and we were able to enter the large prayer room and the wash room. No photos were allowed inside, but we were able to take a few snaps outside and in the inner forum.
Next up was the Royal Regalia museum. We would have preferred the Technology or National museums but one was closed with it
being Sunday and the other closed for renovations. This museum was interesting in a way, but being focussed solely on the Sultan and royal family, didn’t interest us so much. What interested us more was the local market opposite it. We asked Violet if she minded us taking a look and she was happy to take us over and talk with the locals to try and explain what the vast range of bizarre looking fruit and veg on offer were. We’d seen a few interesting fruits in Bali and had tried dragonfruit, the rather smelly but somewhat tasty (if you like creamy onion flavours in your fruit!) “king of fruits“, durian fruit as well as mangosteen. There were some others here we’d not seen. We bought some jackfruit and mangosteen, the “queen of fruits“, and something else I can’t recall the name of! Very enjoyable.
Brunei market – random fruit
We then drove out to the Empire Hotel and Country Club. This is an impressive luxury beach side hotel overlooking the South China Sea. We admired the grand architecture and indulged in cakes and coffee before taking a stroll around the grounds and swimming pool and to the beach, Violet telling us many interesting facts about life in Brunei. It being a Muslim country, it is “dry” – no alcohol is sold. However, the border with Malaysia is only an hour or so away, and you are allowed to bring back 12 cans of beer or a bottle of spirit per person, so people would regularly drive to the border to stock up on drinks.
Empire Hotel and Country Club, Brunei
She told us how there was generally no problems living there as a non-Muslim, although the Sultan was becoming more strict in his followings of the faith in his later years and some Sharia law was being adopted. Previously, during Ramadan and fasting, some restaurants and stalls were allowed to be open for tourists to be able to eat, but this was no longer the case.
Healthcare in the country is excellent; you pay a dollar to visit a doctor, but then have unlimited medicine for a year. Hospital care is free, and if they are unable to provide the required expert care needed in their country, it is paid for in another.
Every family in Brunei has a car – they are heavily subsidised by the Sultan. Houses are also provided for free!
On the drive back Violet pointed out many more interesting sights and buildings, and drove us into the country club. There was a restaurant there she’d been considering taking us to, but after the morning fruits and the lunchtime cakes, we were pretty full, so we drove around the grounds trying to spot the pet elephant that lived there, but we were only able to see a few monkeys.
It was then time for the river cruise to the water village, and then on to the mangroves, to try and see the Dutchman monkeys. These are
River boat ride in Brunei
so called for their red noses; in Colonial times, the Borneo Malaysians were reminded of the Dutch by them.
Violet told us that crocodiles also lived in the river but she hadn’t seen one herself – we couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing!
We were taken to the water village, a curious mix of old and new, some dilapidated, buildings perched on legs in the river. We
Brunei water village
docked and were taken to a typical locals home to try tea and some local cakes – very nice. We thought we’d feel a bit uncomfortable sitting there as tourists in a strangers home, but they had a very large living room area and bought in the cakes and drink and left us to it.
We then resumed our river cruise and after ten minutes or so had left the city and passed the back of the Sultan’s Palace, and started looking for the elusive Dutchman. We spotted many storks along the rivers edge, and saw a few eagles circling above.
We pulled into a side stream and stopped the boat and were able to
Brunei river – hunting for Dutchman monkeys
catch a glimpse of the monkeys in the distance swinging among the tree tops; their large red noses visible through the foliage.
After a steady cruise back we were starting to get hungry. Violet had been intending on taking us to another mosque but we asked her to join us for lunch and asked if she could personally recommend somewhere to try local food, but something vegetarian. She struggled to think of anywhere and asked if we liked sushi, which we heartily responded ‘yes‘ to. We enjoyed an excellent meal and then it was time to say our thanks and goodbyes and we returned to the airport.
Brunei International was currently being modernised, so the transit area was a little small and basic, but after the days heat and another 18 hours or so of travel to look forward to, we used the rather dodgy – but (just about) functional showers at the airport to freshen up before our flights.
We now had a 7 hour slog to Dubai, a short wait, and another 7 hours back to the UK.
One thing I mentioned before was that the Royal Brunei Airlines flights looked like better options than the others as there was only one stop.
I hadn’t realised that this is a bit misleading; there is actually a second, in Dubai – for refueling. You have to get off the aircraft (for safety reasons) during this time, but get back on the same one/same seats. On the flight out, there’d been a delay leaving, so we literally got off, went through a very basic security scan, had a long walk, went back through another basic security scan, and got back on again. This time round we had almost two hours off the plane.
We’d considered visiting Dubai previously, but had heard the stories about couples getting into trouble for inappropriate acts – such as kissing in public. You weren’t even supposed to hold hands. In Brunei we’d refrained. In Dubai airport we figured the rules were the same – although I accidentally kissed my girlfriend on the cheek on the escalator automatically – but nobody had seen; phew. Yet I was surprised to see several scantily clad (presumably) Russian lasses in short skirts and high heels walking around the shops amongst the heavily veiled local women.
Slightly bizarre contrast.
We then resumed our flight home.
RBA is a dry airline – no alcohol is served on board. We’d read that if you took on a few miniatures then they wouldn’t mind, but we weren’t bothered – alcohol at high altitude is a bad idea anyway and you always get dehydrated on flights. We made the most of the plentiful in flight food and water/juice/tea/coffee and enjoyed several movies.
The flights out had passed well; we’d slept a little which was fine as we had been happy being tired on arrival as the local time had been time to sleep; on the way back, we needed a good sleep as we’d arrive at a local time of 6am. Of course, we couldn’t get comfortable – not helped by a passenger who sat next to us, who, in all politeness, stank terribly – and the flight was rather exhausting. We then hit morning London rush hour traffic which we had to fight through and it took around 3 hours to get home – just in time to start work!
Fantastic experience though and Bali was a great place to visit. I just wish it were closer!!
After spending a very enjoyable 3 days in the cultural heart of Bali, Ubud, we took a taxi down to Sanur Beach to book out boat the island of Nusa Lembongan.
Only to find that no boats were allowed to sail there that day due to a ceremony taking place and there being a ‘silent beach‘ policy in place!
What to do? We’d already booked the hotel and it was too late to cancel. And where would we stay?
The travel agent mentioned that we would still be able to sail to the Gili islands.
My girlfriends face lit up.
She had really wanted to visit the Gili islands, but had been told that they were a considerable distance away and it would take almost a day to reach – we had decided that we couldn’t quite squeeze a visit in. Lembongan island being much closer, was reachable in a fast boat in 30 mins, or even a slow one in 90 minutes.
The agent informed us that a fast boat was available that took 2 hours to get there. It was due to leave in 2 hours, but from a different port.
A quick chat with our driver, and we were heading back up the coast to an hours drive north, Pandang Bay.
That afternoon we arrived on Gili Trewangan!
The island has no motorised vehicles. ‘Taxis’ are horse and cart affairs. It looked very remote and tropical and we were excited to be there, but as it was 4pm by this point and sundown at 6pm (sunrise and sunset are more or less always at 6am and 6pm in Bali due to it’s proximity to the equator) and we hadn’t yet cancelled our existing hotel, let alone found replacement accommodation for this island, I was getting a little bit stressed.
We found the first bar with wifi, ordered a Bintang (local beer), and
Gili Trewangan (Gili T) bar – and cats
some food, settled in with the local cats (with their strange stumpy tails) and started the hunt!
Trying to cancel the existing hotel provided tricky. We had already tried calling the hotel to cancel directly, but they told us that as it had been booked via Agoda, we needed to contact them directly. They then also expressed surprise that no-one had been in touch to tell us about the ‘silent beach‘.
I checked the details from the Agoda booking. The cancellation policy suggested that no refund would be made for the first night due to the late notice period; it wasn’t clear if we’d get anything back for the second night. Cancellation was through an online form; I filled in the details and the reason for the cancellation (the ‘silent beach’), along with a bit of a complaint as to why no one had informed us of this, and hit the submit button – only to be told that the cancellation option was not available for this booking.
Sigh.
So I found the ‘contact us‘ form instead and sent off a similar message.
Although the process had been somewhat frustrating at the time, I’m happy to report that Agoda got back to us very quickly and gave us a full refund, which was a pleasant surprise!
The villa I had booked on Nusa Lembongan had taken me some time to find; we had wanted to treat ourselves and literally be on the beach. Could we find something in Gili T the same?
It seemed not. Most of the nicer places appeared to be booked up. There were plenty of basic villas set back from the beach but we’d been looking forward to a bit of luxury.
Then my girlfriend struck gold with the Airbnbapp and discovered the Kokita Villa.
The Kokita Villa is the only villa on Gili T that is on the beach. The reason being is that the beach road that runs around the island is in front of every other villa. It used to be in front of Kokita… but coastal erosion has led to the road having washed away, and having to be diverted around the back – only a small footpath remains in front.
But did they have any rooms?
I made a phone call, which was quickly picked up by the very pleasant Dutch hostess, Esther, who happily replied that they
had a few rooms available at a cost of 900,000 Rupiah (£45) a night – sold!
We finished our drinks and hopped in a ‘taxi’. Our driver yelled ‘time to move!’ repeatedly at the pedestrians and cyclists on the dusty beach road that somehow hadn’t heard the horses trotting nor the
A Gili T island ‘taxi’
jingling of its bells (a surprisingly high number of suicidal people) and only warned us to hold on tight after we’d gone down a huge rut and I’d bashed my head into the roof (I still have a scab a week later when I started writing this).
Five minutes later (and rubbing my head) we arrived at the stunning beach side villa.
Esther and her three cats (Double Trouble, Sari and Happy) gave us a warm welcome and showed us our spacious room. Cold beer
could be had from the fridge, you just needed to mark a tally on the fridge. Perfect.
Kokita Villa – on the beach in Gili T
We spent a very relaxed couple of days on the island.
It seemed that the tourists here were mainly Australian or Dutch (I
believe due to the Dutch colonial history of the area) with a handful of French and Americans. Although Gili T is a beautiful and remote island, the constant stream of backpackers passing by and the busy, dusty and sadly, litter strewn streets of the town made it feel less paradisical than we had hoped. We avoided the centre of the main town and ate at a restaurant Esther had recommended, only a few minutes walk from the villa – Coral Beach 2, a Jamaican place playing live Reggae music. We enjoyed our food watching the band, sat on a sofa on the beach – very pleasant.
Oh, and watched the local cows walk past on the beach!
Cows on Gili T beach
We tried snorkeling, but it being my girlfriends first time using a mask and snorkel, didn’t try for long. I recall my first few times using a snorkel; I had struggled to time my breathing correctly and hated the squashed nose from the mask. She actually got used to it very quickly, but not being a strong swimmer and their being a very strong rip tide, thought it best to stay shallow. Still, we saw some interesting and very colourful fish and coral, and some bizarre crab like creatures.
We decided to hire a bike for a few hours, so we could cycle to the town to use the cash machine and then cycle back and a further ten minutes or so round the corner to the west side to watch the sunset. The villa is on the north east corner of the island, so you can see excellent sunrises over Gili Meno and Lombok in the distance – if you can be bothered to get up at 6am!
This was not such a great idea.
Sure, a bike can be hired very cheaply and it sounds initially like a great way to get around. The problem though, lies both in the condition of the bikes, and the condition of the roads.
The bike chains hadn’t seen a drop of oil since they were first fitted.
The gears jumped around randomly and less than a third were available for selection.
The steering was completely out of alignment.
The suspension was worn out, and the seats in similar condition.
As for the roads… we could just about cope with the rutted track, but when the sand levels built up, it just wasn’t possible to continue – the bike started slewing around and you had to dismount. As we continued further out of the town the road got worse and then disappeared completely.
We ended up pushing the bikes more than cycling them.
Perhaps the roads are better south of the town… but if you are heading north of the town and to the west, I wouldn’t recommend hiring one, although we did see some people on bikes with massive, under inflated tyres, which looked like they were designed particularly for riding on sand, so it may be worth trying one of those if you can find them.
So the going was tough and the clock was ticking, but I was determined to get round the corner and see the sunset – at the
age of 36 (when I was there/started writing this) I’d not successfully
Bike hire on Gili T
seen a decent sunset (I’m not counting UK inland ones in Nottingham!). Every-damn-timeI’m late, or the weather gets the better of me, or I’ve got the position wrong and I’m facing the wrong direction!
We made it in time but it was a little cloudy, however it was still very pretty with the sun going down between the peaks of mount Batur back on Bali. We sat
Gili T sunset
on the beach a while amongst the coral, watching little hermit crabs scurrying about.
After the disappointment of a decent massage in Ubud and the unsuccessful attempt by the healer to fix my girlfriends stiff shoulder, we asked our hostess Esther if she could recommend a good massage therapist. She replied that she did but unfortunately he was currently away, but she asked around and booked us a couple of girls that had been recommended to her.
The massage cost only £7.50 each for an hour, and was very thorough. My girlfriend was very happy with hers, and her
shoulder felt much better after. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed mine – in fact, it bloody well hurt! It wasn’t the relaxing, intoxicating pleasurable massage I had in Ubud – this was a thorough hammering of my muscles. However, it was what I needed – you could feel the lumps and knots of tension in my back and shoulders (too much sitting at an office desk and too much driving) being popped out.
I felt much better afterwards.
One thing to note is that with the Gili islands being closer to Lombok than Bali, the locals are more Muslim than Hindus. This didn’t bother us at all – in fact, I enjoyed hearing the melodic muslim prayers in the background occasionally – and the islands being popular with tourists, there were no issues with alcohol. We had been a little surprised to find the massage girls to be Muslims and surprised too that there was no issue with a married Muslim woman giving an unmarried man a massage, but again, tourism overruled I guess.
The next day we left the island. The plan had been to get the 12pm boat but when we’d cycled (read: pushed our bikes) to the ticket office
Gili T beach
the day before, but it had been fully booked, as had the 8am boat – so the 3pm boat it was. The only problem with this was that the hotel we’d booked in Kuta had a beach side balcony we had wanted to enjoy; so we’d planned to be there much earlier. We couldn’t experience it the next day as we had to be up early for our flight home.
Andthe trip back took even longer than expected.
For a start, the boat was about 40 minutes late leaving.
Secondly, it didn’t go directly back to Bali. It went to Gili Air (a definitely island to visit in the future, even more remote that Gili T!) first, then on further eastwards to the large island of Lombok, before heading back.
It took 3 hours and the journey was horrific – the sea was incredibly choppy, and the boat crashed down from each peak making a horrible metal smashing sound. I didn’t hear anyone being seasick, but everyone onboard (and it was packed) were incredibly silent.
When we finally arrived back onshore, the sun had set and we still had over an hour in a taxi to get to Kuta. It took more like 90 minutes, as Kuta on a Saturday night is absolutely rammed and the traffic jams were awful. When we finally arrived at The Kuta Beach Heritage Hotel, we checked in and told that our room wasn’t available but we had a ‘free upgrade’ to a better room. We made our way up to the room.
Yes, it was nice; there was actually a fancy looking bath IN the room as well as a separate large shower – but I’d specifically booked a room with a beach view balcony. This room was on the other side of the hotel, and ‘featured’ views over a busy and run down looking market street and roof tops.
However, it was late, I was hungry, and what use was a beach view when it’s pitch black and you have to get up to leave for the airport whilst it’s still dark the next day?
We remained put and connected to the wifi to check local restaurants.
We decided not to walk far; having witnessed the chaos of Kuta through the taxi window and the masses of tourists and locals alike streaming through the streets, opted for a traditional Balinese restaurant close to us on Poppy’s Lane.
Yet we couldn’t find it… we navigated the full length of the narrow lane, a dangerous task due to the many mopeds bombing down it
in both directions, and the almost continuous cry of ‘massage?’ every few seconds. We turned around at the end and walked back again, replying ‘no thanks‘ again (and again) to the seemingly endless stream of masseurs calls, and opted for a restaurant we’d
seen a quarter of the way down, Poppies Restaurant.
This was a peaceful, blissful haven in hectic central Kuta! Behind high walls, which blocked out the street sounds, we found an enchanted garden restaurant. The staff were very formal in their behaviour and the way the table was laid; yet wore very casual t-shirts. I didn’t have a problem with that; it just seemed a little at odds. They performed other very formal serving yet made a mess of pouring the wine.
The food was nothing amazing; very average (there seems to be some very mixed reviews on Tripadvisor). We’d enjoyed the escape from the busy streets though, and I had a rather nicely presented cocktail!
Cocktail in Kuta, Bali
Next day we were up early and headed towards the airport.
We were happy to leave Kuta but sad to leave Bali.
After surviving the chaotic taxi journey, we’d finally reached the cultural centre of Bali: Ubud.
I had expected the jungle climate to be more humid than the coast, but it was actually much nicer and the heat (about 29 degrees celsius) was lovely yet comfortable.
We spent three days in Ubud, relaxing by the pool and enjoying the rice fields view, exploring the town and seeing the sights. Three days wasn’t enough really – we would have happily spent a much longer time there.
Having read about the monkey forest in Ubud and the fact that the monkeys could be a little aggressive and hearing that several people had been bitten, we were reluctant to visit. However, we walked to
Monkey forest – lounging around
the entrance and watched several monkeys lounging around the tourists. They seemed fine. What I’d read was that you shouldn’t take any food in with you, as they would smell it and literally steal it from you.
We had no food on us, and deciding to adopt common sense and caution, went in.
Within the first five minutes we saw a monkey leap up a Japanese tourist and swipe his tin of Pringles away.
Tourists fault.
Monkey forest – temple
Otherwise, the monkeys seemed pretty chilled and we could quite peace-fully observe them and the various temples dott-ed around the forest.
We walked around Ubud and admired the various shops full of local
Puri Sariswati, Ubud
art. Although we weren’t overly impressed with the paintings, the handiwork of the woodscraft was something to behold. The same went for some of the architecture and details in the temples. We went for a coffee at Cafe Lotus that overlooks the Puri Sariswati temple and went for a walk around it afterwards.
Massages are advertised everywhere, with prices in villas/hotels around £10 to £20 an hour, whereas the back streets you could find one for more like £7 (we later saw one in Kuta for £3.50 but it looked very dodgy and dirty!). We tried a couple of different massages at the hotel; my Balinese massage was very pleasant and the aromatherapy one had me moaning in pleasure throughout! However, the girls seemed to be only able to follow a set pattern/routine. Both my girlfriend and I were suffering from stiff necks/shoulders and when we asked for them to concentrate on those areas they couldn’t really cope; they spent a few more minutes on those areas then lapsed back into their set routine.
It had taken about 40 minutes to walk into the town from the villa. In many places there were no pavements, and the roads being rather chaotic and full of lorries and mopeds, we decided to use the villa’s driver to go back to the town for our evening meal. The cost was 50,000 Rupiah (about £2.50) each way. The local taxi drivers normally asked for around 70, 80 K.
The next day, we hired a driver (a friend of the villa’s driver as he wasn’t available that day) to take us to the volcano at Mount Batur and to see all the sites on route, in particular, some of the many temples (pura) of the region.
First up was the temple Goa Gajah – AKA the “Elephant Cave”. We
Goa Gajah – AKA the “Elephant Cave”
wondered where the elephants were; however, it takes it’s name from the nearby Elephant River (also lacking in elephants!). This was a pretty interesting temple with some nice buildings, set in pleasant surroundings, but it was a bit ‘tatty’ and there was a lot of litter around, which was a shame.
Pura Gunung Kawi, Ubud
The next temple, Pura Gunung Kawi, was much more interesting, with fantastic views of rice terraces as we walked down the 200
or so steps to get to them. The area is known as Bali’s “Valley of the Kings“. The cliffs opposite the river have shrines carved into the stone walls of the river; quite impressive.
The walk down the steps to get
Pura Gunung Kawi, Ubud – fresh coconuts
there in the heat is hard work but worth it for the temples at the bottom and the jungle and ride paddie views going down; we stopped for some coconut water on the way down to refresh us.
The third and final temple we visited was Tirta Empul. Here you can
Tirta Empul, Ubud
take a dip in the holy water (after making an offering, of course) to bring good health and fortune.
What really struck us here though was the local music that was being played by the priests – it was hauntingly beautiful. One particularly ‘song’ immobilised my girlfriend and literally bought tears to my eyes. We wanted to stay longer to see if they would play more, but it seemed they were having a break and our driver was waiting, so we moved on.
Walking around the temples, we had been offered various wares and goods from stalls positioned strategically to ‘trap’ tourists. However, we hadn’t felt much pressure, aside from the few ladies insisting on us purchasing sarongs (to wear in the temples) despite it being obvious we already had some. It certainly wasn’t anything as pressuring as walking along the streets of, for example, Egypt, or a busy nightlife strip in a popular resort. We were able to politely say ‘no thanks‘ and move on. However, something we did succumb to, was buying green (or young) coconuts. In the blistering heat, the cool coconut water – deliciously fresh and sweet from the younger, green coconuts – was exceptionally refreshing.
However, a word of advice – don’t drink too much! Coconut water can have a certain ‘flushing’ effect on your digestion!
The volcano itself wasn’t actually that interesting. Our driver had taken us to the place tourists typically viewed the volcano from, a restaurant. However, we weren’t hungry at this point, and we’d also
Mount Batur (volcano), Ubud
heard that the restaurant wasn’t particularly good – a typical tourist trap. Strolling down the hill slightly, we found a smaller, more local looking cafe with even better views. We ordered another coconut water and took a few snaps. Sure, it was a pretty, mountain view, but nothing so impressive as to indicate it even being a live volcano. We’d found the jungle and rice field scenery more spectacular.
On the drive back we visited a coffee plantation. The main attraction at these plantations is the novel Lawak coffee, or Civit coffee.
The idea here is that the civet mammals will eat a coffee bean, selecting only the best. The remains at the ‘other end’, shall we say, are only semi digested, and once cleaned, make a supposedly beautifully smooth coffee.
In nature, this is fine. However, its seems that farmers have realised the money they could make out of this and now “civet farms” have emerged. The poor animals are locked up in small cages and literally force fed coffee beans, whether they like it or not. The result is them living short and painful deaths from a poor diet.
There’s an interesting article by the man who started it all in the UK and a petition for Harrods to ban its sale there – which I believe has now been achieved – more info here.
As an interesting aside, the Indonesian people are generally very kind to animals. We noticed many, many cats on our travels there and they were all well fed and looked after, and extremely tame and friendly on approach.
We decided to not drink the Lawak coffee, even though the guide at the plantation assured us that their coffee was made from naturally sourced civet dung.
We didn’t believe them.
Coffee plantation, Ubud
However, it was interesting to see the rest of the plantation, and their complementary array of 12 different coffees and teas was duly sampled. There were some beautiful flavours and we ended up buying several boxes of coffees and teas from them.
However, we later realised that these were far inferior dried versions – I wouldn’t recommend them.
Finally we had a quick stop to see some of the famous Balinese rice terraces.
Balinese rice terrace
In between each place of interest, we chatted to our driver, Sandhu, who spoke reasonably good English. We asked him about crime, as we heard it was low on the island. He explained that most people in Bali were Hindus, and therefore believed in karma. Their genuine belief in that doing good will bring good and doing wrong will bring wrong unto them seems to result in these low crime rates.
He told us about a ceremony that takes place each year in the villages. They make a model (from paper – possibly paper mache?) of the evil and ugly god. They then parade this through the village. The bad spirits are attracted to the ugly god, and go inside it. They then burn it, thus getting rid of the bad spirits.
We asked him what the cloths at the bottom of trees we’d noticed were for. He pointed out that they were normally black and white checks – an equal amount of white (good) and black (evil) to balance out the spirits in the tree!
We got talking more about karma and spirituality, and we mentioned the massages we’d had and the fact that they hadn’t
helped my partners shoulder issues. She asked if Sandhu could recommend someone. He couldn’t think of anyone in Ubud who
would be able to help but started talking about the village ‘Healer’. Apparently he had a good reputation for being able to help people by removing ‘the demons’ that were causing the problem. He then started talking about the Julia Roberts movie Eat, Pray, Love set in Ubud but said that the problem with that particular healer was that he was getting too old, and was losing his powers.
He recommended his particular healer and suggested that he may also be able to help with her skin rash (this appears to have been down to a food allergy).
Ever the sceptic, I wasn’t convinced that a ‘village healer’ was going to able to help – especially when Sandhu started recalling seeing him at work and describing how people would yell as their evil spirits were extracted, and him reenacting the scene, playing the part of a demon crying ‘arggh, arrghh, I’m coming out, I’m going, I’m going!!‘.
No BAFTA award for this taxi driver-come-actor.
Still – we thought it might be an interesting experience, and as the cost (an offering to the gods) was only around £10, we thought we would give it a go.
We drove to Sandhu’s village and parked at his house, then walked a very short distance to his neighbour, the healer. He was a old, rotund and jovial looking fellow with several missing teeth wearing a stained vest with several holes in it. Sandhu did the translation, and he beckoned us into his yard.
Chickens scratched around in the dust as we were led to a bench. The property looked rather run down but we passed the healers temple – which was absolutely magnificent. Obviously the ‘offerings’ were spent well and genuinely on the temple.
My girlfriend was asked to sit on the bench whilst the healer sat behind her and attempted to find her demons. Sandhu had of
course already explained about the shoulder issue and the skin problem was visibly obvious. The healer ran his hands over her back and shoulders and mumbled to himself. He nodded and mumbled in a self satisfied way as if he had found the problem, and Sandhu translated, confirming the case. The healer then took a small, pointed stick/dagger like object and poked it gentle into the area, and spoke what sounded like an incarnation. He then made several stabbing motions (apparently it didn’t hurt) and exclaimed contentedly that the demons had been extracted.
Oaaakaaay.
He then attempted to find the cause of the skin issue. He located the root cause of this in the base of the neck, and performed a similar ‘exorcism’. Sandhu translated that the demon was leaving without too much difficulty, and was actually saying ‘ok, I’m leaving‘ rather than in the other examples he’d given in the taxi where the demon was forcibly removed.
Soooo… was that it?
No. The healer then took some (rather filthy looking) coconut hair and proceeded to brush where my girlfriend has the skin rash. He did this for a good 15 mins or so, which was apparently very soothing to the itchy skin.
He then proceeded to check for any other issues, and after some poking around, found a issue – in my girlfriends womb!
Sandhu translated.
Apparently there was a problem with the womb, which would restrict her from becoming pregnant. The healer then proceeded to
use his ‘demon exorcising’ tool (read: poke with a stick) to extract this particular demon.
Again, success: and the information given that she could now get pregnant; and that it would be a boy.
Erm… great.
Of course, my girlfriend’s shoulder still hurt the next day, and her skin rash persisted. We since discovered that it would appear to be the peanuts in many of the Indonesian sauces that was the culprit; on coming home, and eating other foods, her skin quickly cleared up. A day later she ate some peanuts (not something she regularly eats – cashews or pistachios being our usual nibbles, but we had a packet to use up) and her skin immediately started itching and the old rash flared up again.
However, our visit to the healer had been worth it for the experience.
Not that we’d be back in a hurry.
We continued chatting with our driver about local culture, in particular the music, and the beautifully haunting local music at the temple of Tirta Empul and wanted to experience more. He mentioned that there was a dance with music being performed
that evening at Ubud Palace. It wasn’t exactly the same type of music as we’d heard but would be similar instruments, so we
thought we’d try it – tickets were 80,000 Rupiah each (£4).
He drove us to back to the villa where he waited whilst we freshened up, then drove us back to the centre and to a
restaurant where we ate quickly before the performance.
We’d agreed a price with him of 350,000 Rupiah previously, which is around $35USD or £18 – not bad for a whole day. However, we’d intended to end around 4pm and had ended up using him until about 7pm and he had taken us to several more places, so it went up to 500,000 Rupiah – still only around £25 which was quite reasonable.
Although we’d tried lots of different local food over the past few days and had mostly enjoyed it, we had struggled a little to find suitable vegetarian options for my girlfriend, and had heard excellent reports about a more international restaurant called Locavore, so though we would give it a try.
Unfortunately, it was fully booked, but walking down the road (Jl. Dewisita) we had seen plenty of nice looking options, including a place called Batan Waru. We decided to try it, and were glad we did – the food was excellent. My girlfriend had opted for something
with peanut sauce (before she had realised this was causing the skin irritation, obviously!) and it was so good that she asked for the manager to thank him – and also ask for the recipe, which was duly supplied!
Going back to the local food options – most Indonesian food is somewhere between Chinese and Indian food. Lots of rice, noodles, spicy or nutty options. Nasi Goreng or Mia Goreng are rice or noodles stir fried in a tasty sauce with a few vegetables, with a fried egg on top – quite often offered as a breakfast choice (alongside the usual egg/omelette options and banana pancakes, seemingly a local favourite). Gado gado is a popular dish consisting of tofu and tempe (a nutty/bready concoction made from fermented soya) with vegetables and a delicious peanut sauce.
They were the only vegetarian options really though; everything else was seafood or meat based. Even the vegetarian red curry we ordered once apparently had prawn paste in the sauce.
Food in Bali is quite cheap; the above ‘basic’ meals were normally served as small to medium size dishes for around 45,000 Rupiah (£2.25) and larger main courses were normally at 60,000 Rupiah (£3) with meat dishes starting around 100,000 Rupiah (£5).
Alcohol however was relatively expensive. A small bottle of Bintang (the local Indonesian beer) would cost around 35,000 Rupiah (£1.75) and a large bottle 50,000 Rupiah (£2.50). Wine was even more expensive, with a bottle costing 400,000 Rupiah (£20). However, some places did a house wine, usually Plaga or Hattens, which a glass could be had for 60,000 Rupiah (£3). I wasn’t so keen on the Plaga white (quite sweet Chardonnay) but the white Hattens was pretty nice, like a dry Sauvignon Blanc. Both reds were acceptable.
Supermarket wine prices were similar; however, we found a 2 litre carton box of the Hattens white for only 240,000 Rupiah (£12) which was excellent value.
After our food, we headed over to Ubud Palace. The performance was put on right in front of a floodlit temple, which made it very impressive. The play/dance consisted of several girls dancing in a
Ubud Palace
traditional manner to expressive music, displaying even more expressive facial expressions, to convey the meaning. Monsters and demons and other characters joined the dance. It was very interesting to watch, although I can’t say I followed the meaning of it all. The music was enjoyable but not as good as we had heard at the temple earlier in the day.
We then headed back down to the Cafe Havana Club which had been just up the road from the restaurant. We’d heard some
excellent music coming from their earlier so decided to continue the musical evening. Of course though, this wasn’t local music. True, the band consisted of local musicians, but they were playing Latin music. Still, it was very enjoyable, especially with an accompanying coconut water based cocktail served in coconut shell.
Our three days in Ubud were up too soon. We booked a driver the next morning and headed down to Sanur Beach to book our boat over to Nusa Lembongan, where we’d booked a hotel for a couple of nights on the island.
In October 2014 we decided to travel a little further afield than our usual holidays. Normally we choose 4 or 5 day long breaks away to destinations in Europe to escape to the sun or explore new places, searching for the cheapest deals with the best flight times to fit in a quick break into our busy lives (see my previous article, The Art Of Cheap Holidays).
This time though, we fancied doing something a bit different, and travelling somewhere more exotic, to discover new cultures, food, and climate. We knew that we’d both have a relatively quiet October work wise but then we’d struggle to go away for a reasonable number of days until after Feb next year, so we decided to squeeze a long haul destination into our available 10/11 days slot.
We considered visiting the USA mainland or the Bahamas – but due to the rather last minute nature of the trip, realised that obtaining the necessary Visa’s in time could be tricky. It was also hurricane season. We looked at India, African destinations, and exotic Indian Ocean destinations such as Mauritius and the Maldives.
Scouring skyscanner.net and the various package deal websites for several hours each evening we ruled out destinations due to the expense and complications involved with indirect flights.
My partner was set on visiting the Indonesian island of Bali. She knew several people that had been and she’d also been involved in a business idea that would have operated in Bali that hadn’t quite materialised, but could potentially re-evolve in the future – so she could excuse the trip as a necessary business trip!
However, there are no direct flights to Bali from the UK. You have to fly via either Dubai, Brunei (Borneo), Singapore, Kuala Lumpur etc – there may be more options, but these were the ones primarily coming up.
Did we have enough time in 10 days for such a long haul flight that didn’t have direct flights so involved even longer flight times and the additional complication of transfers?
I was also concerned about the weather. The peak holiday season for Bali ended in September. October/November was the start
of the rainy season. There had also been a typhoon in the ‘nearby’ area of Vietnam and Hong Kong.
However, the more research I did on Bali, the more I wanted to go. The place simply looked stunning. I found a few tripadvisor and Loney Planet blogs/forum posts and it seemed that early October weather was normally good, with temperatures around 29 degrees and the occasional shower, but generally dry.
We decided to risk it.
We found some excellent flights with Royal Brunei Airlines. Other flights we had found meant loosing additional days of work (as a contractor I don’t get paid for days off) or exceptionally long journeys involving not one but two stopover/transfers. We thought we’d found an excellent option with Malaysia Airlines; on the way out, we’d have 6 hours in Kuala Lumpur, enough time to get out and explore another country before flying onwards to Bali, and on the way back, only a very quick transfer. However, Skyscanner, as useful as it can be, had got it wrong this time – the outbound flight simply didn’t exist. The ‘real’ flight wasn’t at such a good time, and the prices had shot through the roof.
The RBA flights were correct, and showed only a 3 hour stopover in Brunei on the way in, with a total journey time of 20 hours. We figured we’d get a few hours sleep on the first leg, but still be quite tired, so that when we arrived at midnight, we’d still be ready to sleep – despite our body clocks still thinking it was 5pm (due to the 7 hour time difference).
One the way home, it would take 30 hours, due to a 10 hour stopover in Brunei. We’d actually arrive there after only a 2.5
hour flight from Bali at 10am so it was perfect to have a whole day there and explore a new country, before heading home that evening. We’d then be back at 6.25am UK time. We’d have a 14 hour flight to get as much sleep as we could so that I could actually work that day when we got back and not loose a days pay – ideal.
The Royal Brunei flights were also considerably cheaper (at £581 each for a return) than anything else, which helped matters!
We needed to hurry up and book as the flights were just over two weeks away and we still hadn’t arranged our vaccinations, which needed to be done at least two weeks before. I’d already made an appointment with the nurse but she was somewhat irritated as I’d not been able to confirm our destination yet and therefore which injections we’d need!
We booked and duly visited the nurse for the combined Diphtheria, Tetanus & Polio (DTP) and combined Typhoid and Hep A
injection.
They didn’t really hurt at the time, but my arm ached a lot for two days after from the Typhoid and Hep A vaccination; the nurse said this was due to the large volume of liquid required for that particular injection.
(Update: I recently had the Hep A booster – man that hurt, for about 5 mins – then nothing!).
The next few weeks were rather chaotic. We were in the process of planning a kitchen refit, involving knocking through a wall from the original small kitchen into the dining room. Our builder revealed that he was available whilst we were away so we decided that to avoid the noise and mess it would be ideal for him to proceed whilst we were away. We hadn’t made many important decisions though yet so had a frantic few days visiting kitchen places and DIY shops and trying to organise everything.
We hadn’t had time to plan our trip or book any hotels!
With a few days to go, and some squeezed research on lunch breaks, we managed to plan an itinerary and book the necessary hotels in the evenings.
We decided that as we were arriving at midnight and would be potentially jetlagged, to stay in the same hotel for at least two nights, in order to get a decent sleep and be able to recover. We chose Nusa Dua due to it’s approximately to the airport but relative luxury and peace, compared to the popular Kuta area, and booked a hotel via Hotels.com (through TopCashBack) at the The Wangsa Benoa.
The Wangsa Benoa villa in Nusa Dua
Our plan to only get a few hours sleep on the plane and be able to sleep at the local midnight time (UK time 5pm) worked, and we slept until about 10am.
Unfortunately, we still felt like crap.
My partner had the worst of it, suffering from a splitting headache for most of the first day. I just felt extremely groggy and somewhat braindead. We took it easy and chilled by the pool, and wandered down to the beach for an explore.
The humidity, rather than the heat, was what hit us. Being close to the sea and it being around 30 degrees, the humidity was very high, and walking any distance was quite tiring. Fortunately we’d found a Tripadvisor recommended restaurant at a hotel almost opposite us so didn’t had too far to walk.
Our first impressions of Bali were good, although with Nusa Dua being more for luxury resorts (we’d picked a mid class apartment in a complex of villas with private pools; we had the shared pool but as there was no-one there had it to ourselves anyway!) I was surprised that the streets were so dirty and dusty, with lots of run down looking buildings and missing pavements. The beach also wasn’t very nice, with lots of rubbish strewn around. It may have been because we were quite far south of the main part of Nusa Dua.
However, the people were friendly and the weather good and asides from suffering from jet lag, we passed a first day reasonably well. We were shattered in the evening so just got some snacks in our room and had an early night.
Day two we felt a little better and after a quick dip in the pool and packing up, arranged a taxi to Ubud.
This is when we really experienced Bali.
Ubud is the cultural centre of Bali. The town is located in the jungle and rice paddy fields and is the central hub for art, food, writing, spiritualism and traditional music and dances.
Getting there was an experience.
Indonesia driving is an art in itself.
Drivers make their own rules, and “lane discipline” is a concept unheard of.
Driving through the busy outskirts of the capital and through Benoa and Sanur, we experienced driving techniques that would leave even a East European driver gob smacked.
And I’ve driven in Bulgaria!
Mopeds & motorbikes weaved in between traffic like fish between seaweed. Undertaking and overtaking were continuous, often into the face of oncoming traffic. How we didn’t witness several deaths I don’t know. Mopeds would swerve into whatever gaps they could, whether they were on their side of the road or not. At busy junctions, to avoid the queues, mopeds would go into the oncoming traffic’s lane to get by the slower/queued traffic.
Traffic lights? Mostly ignored.
Lanes for left and right turners only? Used by everyone.
I even saw riders/drivers using right hand turn only lanes to get
past stationary traffic and then swing in front of them to turn left!
We asked our driver why several drivers often had their hazard lights on. He told us that he personally would only use them for when there was a problem, but he figured that people used them when they didn’t want to go left or right, but straight on. Even he agreed that this was flawed, as anyone approaching from the side could only see the one light and assume that the driver was turning one way.
Not that anyone took any notice of indicators.
The horn system seemed to work well. The locals honk their horns – lightly, and not aggressively and loudly like in the UK – to mean many different things, such as “I’m coming through”, “watch out”, “I’m undertaking you”, “I’ve acknowledged you undertaking me”, “move please”, “I’m coming round a tight blind corner”, “I’m overtaking on a blind corner” etc etc.
There’s a continuous rhythm of honks and pips.
After almost two hours, we finally reached Ubud. The narrow streets being so full of traffic in Bali means that getting a relatively short distance can take a considerable amount of time.
After a little back tracking, our driver finally found our villa, off a dusty side road. Thankfully – Ubud itself was far too loud with the main road running through it and all the moped and vehicle noise and horns.
The villa was beautiful (Lodtunduh Sari Retreat – booked through Agoda as recommended by a colleague and via TopCashBack) –
set in the ride paddies with great views. The staff were very friendly and helpful. Our room was simple but comfortable, with a mosquito net around the bed. Our bathroom was open to the sky.
I’ve mentioned TopCashBack in many of my blog posts and thought I’d dedicate an article to the this great service and way of saving/making cash.
TopCashBack is an online service whereby you click through to a merchant (i.e. seller) via their site. They track this site visit, and if you make a purchase, you receive cash back.
Simple!
The service has literally saved me over a thousand pounds since I joined a few years ago, and continues to do save me money.
Of course you have to sign up with TopCashBack and register you bank details. It costs nothing though. You simply search for a merchant, or services description, and it will list the merchant or suitable alternatives, with the amount of cashback on offer.
For example, say you want to book a hotel for a night and have spotted a good deal on Hotels.com. Instead of booking directly through Hotels.com, you log into your TopCashBack account and enter Hotels.com in the merchant search. Usually they are offering around 7% cashback with this site. You check the terms and click through to Hotels.com; a new window is opened and ‘tracked’. You then place your booking as normal with Hotels.com.
Behind the scenes, the booking is tracked. Once your hotel booking is completed (i.e. after you have visited, as potentially you could
cancel) then Hotels.com informs TopCashBack and they are able to claim cashback from them, which is later paid into your account.
It can take quite a long time sometimes to get your cashback – usually 6 to 8 weeks – but you will get it eventually.
7% cashback on a £80 hotel booking is £5.60, so well worth doing.
And once you get into the habit of checking TopCashBack before buying anything online, you can save a small fortune – I’ve saved over a £1000 over the years.
Sometimes only a very small percentage, as little as 0.5%, is offered, but it all adds up. Cashback can be a percent of the purchase price,
or often a fixed value, for example, I recently had a £65 cashback offer on home insurance I took out.
Some of the best cashback deals are on services – such as switching Energy suppliers. Currently Npower are offering £47.25 cashback if you switch to them on their dual fuel plan. Mobile phone providers also offer high cashback volumes – O2 are offering up from £26 up to £126 cashback for some of their mobile contracts.
I mentioned I got a good cashback deal on home insurance; you can also save on car insurance, motorcycle insurance, business insurance – most forms of insurance, really. Just have a search in the TopCashBack merchants list.
Perhaps the insurance broker or service you were planning to use isn’t listed; but there is usually a suitable alternative. Occasionally,
you may find a better deal without cashback, but it’s always worth checking.
I may find a hotel for £60 on Venere.com and cheaper on LastMinute.com for £55; but TopCashBack may be offering 15% cashback at that point with Venere as opposed to LastMinute.com’s 5%, so purchasing via Venere effectively costs me only £51, as opposed to LastMinutes.com reduced price of £52.25.
Now it’s coming close to Christmas time too there are some excellent cash back offers. The Buy a Gift and Red Letter Days sites are also doing cashback currently at 12.6% and 18.9%!
TopCashBack tracks your cashback in a dashboard so you can easily see what you’re order and how the order is processing.
My TopCashBack account
Of course, there are other cashback sites out there, such as Quidco, but personally I prefer the way TopCashBack works and it’s simple
interface. Only on a few rare occasions have I had to ‘chase’ cashback, but it’s always been sorted out eventually.
So what do I ask for giving you this wonderful advice on how to save so much money?
Just sign up with TopCashBack through my referral link here please 🙂
Halloween 2014 in the UK was the warmest on record, with temperatures in London of 23C. Yet only 6 days later temperatures plummeted to freezing. Thursday morning I was confronted with an iced up car.
What I needed was my best winter friend.
My leather gloves? Well, they are indeed very handy (no pun intended) in this weather, much more so than woolly gloves, which instantly get wet upon touching the car door handle, and then are rendered useless. Really, what is the point of woolly gloves in the cold and damp UK climate? They always get wet very quickly, and once they are wet, you hands get cold. About as useful as a chocolate fire guard.
So yes, I value my leather gloves on a cold morning and I didn’t suffer when opening my car door.
My woolly hat? Very useful for me, being bald. Not that I get a cold head – no, my head normally feels ok; but I suffer from Raynaulds syndrome, and when my body temperature drops – without me often realising it and thinking I’m reasonably warm – my fingers and toes turn to ice and go white (post coming up about this soon). Very annoying, not to mention rather uncomfortable. Wearing a woolly hat though seems to stop the heat escaping from my body through the top of my head; my core temperature stays higher and my ‘pinkys’ remain, well, pink.
No, my most favourite winter friend is my trusted, rusty old scraper.
The best scraper in the world.
Well, let’s put it another way – it’s a scraper that actually works.
Icy mornings are a pain to all car commuters; first thing in the morning, in the dark, still half asleep, the last thing you want to do is work your way around you car trying to get the ice off. Some people prefer to get in and wait in the car for it to warm up, but this is quite time consuming. Most of us get up as late as we possibly can to ensure we get adequate sleep before setting off for work; we don’t have spare time to be hanging around. I have to get up at 6.30am as it is; I’m not getting up any earlier to sit around in a cold car thankyouverymuch!
Many will choose the de-icer spray route.
I find de-icer annoying for many reasons, such as:
If you leave the can in the car, it rolls around and rattles irritatingly
If you don’t leave it in the car, you can never find it (and you’ve already locked up the house)
If you leave it in the car, the can is absolutely freezing to the touch
You always seem to run out at the worst time
It absolutely stinks
The nozzle very often gets blocked and the spray is a useless dribble
It can damage your paintwork
It ends up all over your hands – bad for skin, and cold
It quite often just doesn’t work – you end up with a sludge on your windscreen that then freezes again into a lumpy mess
No. I’ll use a scraper.
But scrapers are useless. Well, most standard plastic scrapers, that is. They will simply leave two marks on your window where the two far edges scrape a thin sliver of ice off. Rubbish.
But I have a superscraper.
When I passed my driving test in 1995 at the age of seventeen and my Dad bought me my first car (a bright Orange 1 litre Metro – see my car history), I was also handed his spare scraper.
It was a rusty piece of metal with a rubber end.
I wasn’t overly enthusiastic.
He assured me that I’d apprecriate it when the time comes – and he was right.
It’s the only scraper I’ve ever used that actually works.
It may sound over the top, but I loved that little scraper. It took seconds to scrape off the ice, and did so in clean, clear sweeps. On the rare occasions I didn’t have it for some reason, and was forced to use a standard plastic scraper, I would dispair. My fingers would be frozen and the view through the windscreen barely adequate to see the road.
When I lost it I was gutted. I faced a couple of winters struggling to clear icy windscreens. I tried lots of different plastic scrapers but they were all pratically useless. They’d scrape off only a thin layer; or leave thin trails in the ice; or they would simply snap. I reverted to the de-icer spray, which I hate, as per my above points.
When my Dad passed away unexpectedly over a couple of years ago, it took me some time to get over the shock. After some time, we all went through the usual motions, and I agreed to arrange disposing of his car.
I found his ice scraper in there.
I was happy to share any inheritence and possessions fairly and equally with my brother.
Not the scraper – that was mine.
I am the eldest so I think I can justify my actions 🙂
So, for the last couple of winters I have laughed in the face of the icy windscreens again.
This morning, the first icy windscreen of the season, was no different, and my windows were clear in seconds.
I hear now that you can buy ‘better’ scrapers made out of materials other than plastic. I suppose I could try one. But whilst as have ol’ Rusty, I’m quite happy.
Here is a beautiful picture of my beloved winter friend for you to drool over.
The best windscreen scraper in the world – ol’ Rusty
I’ve owned Leona, my ten year old Seat Leon 1.9TDi, for a couple of months now, and, perhaps predictably, I’m bored.
It was a good choice and more or less meets my requirements for a daily commuter, but I’ve decided to treat myself to something a little flasher.
I’d considered the Audi TT and A5; the Merc CLC or a Jag XF. I’d ruled out the Hyundai Coupe and the Honda CRZ. A GT86 would be great but I will have to be patient until the price drops somewhat.
One day, I was sat in Leona with my 6 year old daughter, waiting for her to finish the snack we’d just bought at the supermarket before setting off to visit a relative. A car pulled into the space in front of us.
I asked her what she thought of it.
Her response was simple: Buy it.
And I’m seriously tempted to take her advice.
There’s one problem…it’s French.
A Peugeot.
A true petrol head can’t own a Peugeot, can they?!?
But this is no ordinary Peugeot – it’s the stunning RCZ.
It’s sleek sexy lines and unique double bubble roof are captivating.
The Peugeot RCZ
But did I mention it’s French?
And that it’s a Peugeot?
I’d already suffered with the unreliability and expensive servicing of the Peugeot 306 I had owned for three years. Did I want to go down that route again?
I started to do some research. No doubt the engine options were rubbish, and they were terribly unreliable.
I was suprised to find that this isn’t the case.
The engine options (aside from the top of range and expensive RCZ-R model) are a 2.0 litre diesel or a 1.6 litre turbocharged petrol engine in two different guises. Dismissing the diesel, I looked into the 1.6 petrol option – surely that would be too small and underpowered? My 306’s 1.6 engine only produced 90bhp.
But that was back in 1993, and it was a natural aspirated engine.
This turbo charged unit produces either 156bhp or 200bhp.
Nice.
Assuming at the time that the 200bhp engine would be horribly inefficient – ‘better’ (sorry Peugeot) car makers typically struggling to better 35mpg with a 200bhp engine – I considered the 156bhp option. Would that be enough power?
The car is pretty light, and reading the official as well as owners reviews, it sounded sufficient – and promised an excellent 44mpg.
That’s about what I’m getting when driving the Leon, erm, ‘enthusiastically’.
So perhaps the 200bhp option wouldn’t be so bad… I guessed 36mpg.
The official combined figure is 42mpg.
That’s impressive. Go Peugeot!!
But how realistic is that claim?
I checked the owners reviews.
A Peugeot RCZ in grey
The more I read, the more I fell in love. The RCZ sounds perfect for me. It’s fast enough, makes a nice noise, is spacious (at the front – rear is for children only, which is fine), and is surprisingly efficient.
Some people were only getting 32mpg, but they weren’t even trying. I read that most people doing regular ‘motorway speeds’ were getting around 40mpg, which I’d be very happy with for a 200bhp petrol engine. Revs at 85mph in sixth gear were reported to be 2,500rpm – that’s the same that Leona achieves at that speed (apparently, of course), and that’s a low revving diesel. So it’s comfortable & quiet & economical at those speeds.
Great.
Hang on hang on hang on.
I’ve been down this road before.
I always buy a car and then get bored or realise it’s not suitable in some way or another after 2 or 3 months.
Won’t this be the same?
Well, in this case, I won’t rush into it. I can’t – I don’t have the money to.
So I will take my time and read more information, check out potential problems etc, and try and go for a test drive in one.
And so what if it’s a Peugeot? It’s a RCZ. It’s still special.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t have special needs, like most of my previous car choices.
Fuel efficient – yes, the 1.9TDi VAG engine is probably the best diesel in that price bracket
Reasonable power – yes, 150bhp is plenty to safely overtake, convenient for motorway miles
Leona (Seat Leon) and Maggy (MX-5)
Yet strangely enough, I’m not comfortable in her – I’ve been struggling with back ache. Ok, the back ache was due to sitting / sleeping in awkward positions on a couple of long haul flights, and having an awful new office chair – but Leona wasn’t helping. I decided to use the MX-5 one day, and despite the small cabin, and the fact that the aftermarket cup holder (there isn’t one as standard) is inconveniently placed so that for the first 20 minutes of my morning commute I’m having to change gear in a very awkward manner to avoid knocking over my coffee cup, my back was actually happy for the first time in days.
Perhaps all these years of driving daft sports cars has moulded my back so that I’m more comfortable in a sports/low coupe type car?
As it was, I had the seat set low in the Leon for that ‘sportier’ feel. However, it wasn’t very comfortable – it felt like even though I was fairly close to the wheel and had a good arm reach, my left leg had to travel a long distance to fully engage the clutch; and returned to it’s rest position was bent up too much. I even started getting pins and needles in my right leg!
However, I’ve found that a lot of adjustment can be made to the seat, especially with the height. Bringing the seat up to almost maximum height has more or less resolved the clutch pedal issue and I’m no longer getting pins and needles in my other leg. But the higher seating position is less ‘fun’, and I’m still not as comfortable as I’d like to be.
Moving onto fuel efficiency… well, it seems I can get 54mpg… but OMG I have to drive like an old aged pensioner to achieve it. I tried it for a week but the depression I suffered wasn’t worth it.
Driving ‘realistically’, and trying to change gear as soon as I can without spoiling all of my fun, and at prolonged speeds of – well, let’s say, ‘typical UK motorway speeds’, then we’re looking at somewhere around 45mpg, max 50mpg.
That’s not bad – but not quite as good as I’d hoped.
Because, moving onto the third point, power: is the mpg figure good enough to justify having a less powerful (than cars I normally have) diesel (when I prefer petrol)?
Possibly. But I started having a look at other options out there… just in case.
The conclusion I came to previously, and that I’m still arriving at, is that the 1.9TDi diesel engine still is the best you can buy for the money, in terms of power vs efficiency. The diesels that came in after 2005 to meet new legislations are less efficient (although admittedly more environmentally friendly) and prone to problems. The latest diesels are excellent, but out of my price range.
Or are they?
I’ve decided that having a 10 year old car – and one that was out of date for its year anyway (it having been around 4 or 5 years and the new shape having come in the year later) – as my daily commute is fine – but not as pleasurable as I’d like.
Loving cars as much as I do, I feel that I’d like something that bit ‘nicer’.
I’d set my budget for the Leon at 3 to 4 grand, and had purchased Leona bang in the middle at £3500.
Looking at the market and what options are available, I’ve decided to save up over the next few months and treat myself to something in the £10,000 price range early next year.
Is that enough to buy me one of these ultra efficient, powerful, diesel cars?
Sadly, no.
But it does open up the option of some newer petrol engines which offer a reasonable amount of performance for the ‘claimed’ MPG figures.
Besides, I’d prefer a petrol engine – I’ve had two diesels now, and the big heavy rumbly lumps aren’t winning me over… yet. I’m very interested to see how Jaguar’s new XE with it’s lightweight aluminium body and lightweight Ingenium engines fair… but it will be some time until they are affordable to me!
So… what cars do I like? What meets my criteria?
I’m thinking a smart/sporty looking coupe, with a spacious yet sporty, low seated cabin, with hatchback/decent boot practicality.
Something with between 150 and 200bhp, probably a 1.8 or 2.0 turbocharged petrol engine?
Hyundai Coupe S3
I’ve always liked the third generation Hyundai Coupe, the S3. I owned a first generation model – it was a tad unrefined, but fun. I looked into the S3, but was disapointed with the engine range – you either have a lacklustre unit that’s also not particularly efficient, or an over the top V6 that drinks petrol like my best friend drinks beer (far too quickly).
How about the Honda CRZ? That’s an ultra funky looking thing… and I like to be different. But it’s way too underpowered for my liking.
A Beetle? Too cute.
A Mini? Too – well, not too small – mini’s these days are pretty large – and I did used to quite like them. But for some reason, they just don’t appeal to me any longer. I guess they’ve become a bit too popular.
An Audi TT? Ah… now we’re talking. Nice lines, a bit different looking, comfortable cosy and sporty cabin… there’s even a diesel option. But I’ve ruled that out… it’s the same 2.0 unit my brother experienced numerous problems with in his A4, and not really to my liking either. But the 2.0 petrol unit looks pretty good – claimed combined figures of 34 mpg – is that good enough??
Not sure… would have to check the ‘real world’ figures – and it’s motorway cruising efficiency.
I actually raised an interesting question on pistonhead regarding reduced fuel efficiency at higher speeds, and the effect of drag – worth a read at Cars economy.
Besides, the TT’s are a little common… and ‘hairdresser’ ish. Although can I actually say that, when I love MX-5s so much and I’m on my fifth??
Moving swiftly onwards…
Audi A5? I loved these when they first came out. I still like them. There’s a 2.0l petrol option with reasonable economy I’d consider. I love the amber/terracotta leather they do in one model… but otherwise the interior is a tad dull. Would an A5 be ‘interesting’ enough for me?
I considered the more luxurious options… how about a Lexus? Nothing takes my fancy. A Merc? The CLC is quite nice… more sporty than most Mercs. The problem I’d found before is that most Mercs are autos, and I prefer a manual gearbox. However, the CLC does come in a manual version. There’s a good range of engines, with power and MPG figures in the acceptable ball park… should I get a Merc?
Quite possibly. But how about a Jag? I’d love to own a Jaaaaag (the way Jeremy Clarkson pronounces it). The XF is a lovely looking car – although I prefer the facelifted front end version, and that’s out of my price range. The other issue is the engine options; realistically the only desirable option for me is the 3 litre diesel. This is one time I’d consider a diesel again – 240bhp and 42mpg? Sounds great! The other issue though with the XF is that’s its an auto only car.
So a diesel, and an auto? Not really my cuppa tea, luv.
There’s something about the XF though, something unshakable. Perhaps I should test drive one, just to be sure.
Desirable… the car’s not bad, either
What about my good old friend Toyota? I’ve already had a Celica – and they’re too outdated now… it’s replacement is the GT86. I would love a GT86… that’s right up my street. But they are still too new, and expensive. I will have to wait a few more years.
Then I found a car I would never had considered before…
Welcome to my blog on various subjects of interest
set in Ubud but said that the problem with that particular healer was that he was getting too old, and was losing his powers.
