Last September, I had a trip to Bali with my friend, Petek. It was actually an unexpected trip.
It all started when few months ago I really wanted to go to Bali, then Petek also did. We began to arrange things like booking the most affordable hotel, searching the cheapest price for our ride, and looking for places we would visit from internet. Yeah, we were trying to be backpack travelers.

This trip was such a great getaway for me after doing internship and before I start to work on my thesis. This sudden plan was completely an amazing thing I ever done since last May. This trip really made me getting out from my comfort zone. I also learnt much things about other people... and myself.


We chose to take the train instead of choosing plane. As students we didn't have much money (and try to minimize our outcome) so we decided to pick the cheapest transportation. At that time train was pretty affordable. An economic class train from Bandung to Surabaya cost IDR 200K per person, then from Surabaya to Banyuwangi we took business class train for IDR 100K per person.


After arriving at Banyuwangi, we should find bus which included trip across the sea (by ship, of course) from Ketapang Harbor and went directly to Denpasar. It cost us IDR 90K, well it was quite expensive but we chose Damri since we already familiar about it and we just took the safest choice.

When the ship was ready to sail, Petek and I went outside bus and strolled around the ship. Then we saw the top deck, and we really enjoyed the view around. It was pretty challenging to stand onto ship since it constantly moved, but thankfully I had no seasick during that 1,5 hours-sail.

The view was amazing. The wind blew pretty strong, it ruined my hair but it didn't matter, LOL.



Sailing was over, all the passengers came back to bus and ready to go to Denpasar. Before we even started, all the ship passengers should walk to the welcome gate then show their ID cards to local officers. This method could prevent illegal citizen or worse, terrorist. Finish with that, all Damri passengers were going to Denpasar. It took 4 hours from Gilimanuk Harbor to Denpasar City. I chose to sleep during the road trip since I haven't fully slept on train.

We finally arrived at Damri Bus Station, Denpasar. We were lucky because if we took other bus, we would stop at other bus station that quite far from Denpasar. Based on what I saw, there was no public transportation like 'angkot' here. There was one but only at Denpasar, not others.

From this station, we chose to take Gojek to our hotel at Jimbaran. Well I wasn't so lucky when ordering the Gojek because the first ojek didn't come for 30 minutes but he took the credit money. Damn. Petek ordered another Gojek (since hers was already coming), so after little struggle with Gojek, we finally reached our hotel.

We stayed at Coco De Haven Hotel. It located at Ngurah Rai Bypass, so it was exactly on the main road. The place was okay, I only hoped we could have dresser in our room. Moreover, the room was pretty great for the price we got, IDR 720K for 4 nights. It was a great deal that I found on booking.com.

We just had 31-hours-road-and-sea-trip from Bandung to Denpasar. It was insane. Both of us were extremely exhausted since we couldn't rest well on train and bus. We decided to take a rest for a while. We arrived in afternoon, and we wanted to go around Kuta in evening. First thing I should do was waiting for my rented motorcycle. I rented a motorcycle for 4 days so Petek and I could go around Bali easily. The price was cheap enough, IDR 50K per day. We could split the bill only IDR 100K for one person.

Around 3.30 p.m, we finally did our first ride in Bali. We were starving but apparently we're also confused where to eat, so we just thought the safest choice: going to Kuta. There was McDonalds, then after had our very late lunch we strolled around Kuta Beach. We just sat on the beach, watching the sun set.