It’s been said that Bali is not the place to learn how to ride a motorbike. I can’t disagree more, Bali is the perfect place to learn how to ride a motorbike.
This morning we got up early to catch the buffet breakfast at New Arena Hotel. It consisted of fried noodles, fried rice, eggs cooked to your liking, orange juice and coffee/tee. A bonus, and keeping us in touch with the real world, was CNN on the big screen.
Renting A motorbike in Bali 101
There were two main reasons we hired a motorbike. First, all the tourists zooming by looked free and easy and secondly, taking a cab often involved a lot of haggling and we were saving our haggling prowess for Julia’s shopping.
We had passed several rental places on the way into our little gangway of Poppies Road 1 and headed towards Kuta Beach Road surveying prices as we went. We eventually chose Anugrah Maharani, a tiny office up some steps with a row of bikes outside and picked a new looking one with a long seat – it was going to accommodate two of us.
The price started with Rp50,000 – because it’s automatic, he said. We got him down to Rp 40,000, but the tank was empty, so we had to find a station and he said it would probably taken an extra Rp 10,000. Your rental bike will have as much fuel in it as the previous renter left in it when they returned it – which is often only a few drops.
Renting the bike was easy. “Do you have a license?” he asked, not specifying whether he meant a motorbike license. I have a license, for a car. He didn’t check, so I wrote down the license number. A passport number was required, which I wrote down without him even verifying that I had a passport. No deposit was required.
I got on the bike, and rode down the alley way – for the first time ever in traffic. My previous motorbiking experience include a spin on some farmland long ago – it’s not hard at all. It’s like a bike and you twist your wrist back to go faster and you break by pulling the levers under your hands. Nothing to it. After a warm-up session I doubled back to fetch Julia. Helmets on and off we went.
Bali Scams 101: Petrol Scam
The petrol station was a few lefts and rights away. There was a queue, but the attendant waved us forward. He tended several bikers ahead of us, before he hurriedly gestured “what?”. For both of us a first time on a bike, the tank was empty, we were excited.
Fill her up. I had barely opened my wallet to ready the money when the attendant was done. I checked in disbelief and saw it was full. The pump said Rp 38,000. I was puzzled; that’s a lot of petrol even in Ringgit. “What?”, I asked. He said “you asked to fill it”. I watched him fill a few other bikers with Rp10,000 that they asked for and tried to check how much petrol they’re getting – not much less than us – I was convinced he didn’t reset the pump after filling the people he served ahead of us.
“You asked to fill,” said one of the bikers, “we ask for Rp10,000.” I wasn’t convinced, but what could I do? I paid the amount shown. Later we learned that Rp 15,000 would fill the tank of a big bike, and we had a small one, so Rp 10,000 would have done. So, ask specifically for your amount, and avoid saying “fill her up”.
Cruising for sights
After our little petrol lesson we headed down the road to the Discovery Shopping Centre. Traffic was thick, but we simply followed the flow of motorbikes, doing what they did, and we seamlessly blended with Bali traffic.
The mall is the most mall’ish of the malls in Kuta (that we saw anyway) and featured a relatively good collection of brands. There was nothing spectacular about the mall. Western brands and fast food joints had huge signs atop long poles outside the mall, each one eclipsing the next. A huge KFC bucket overlapped the Starbucks logo which overlapped the A&W logo which overlapped several other signs.
Bali Scams 102: Scratch Card Scam
I guy came up to us and offered us scracth cards, saying he was promoting a local hotel. “Scam”, said Julia and walked away as I humoured him by scratching the free card. Unsurprisingly I uncovered 3 of the same symbols and the guy went into a fake happy hysteric fit.
“You don’t know how lucky you are!” he exclaimed, “You know how lucky I am!” He was laying it on thick. “For what you uncovered I will get double my commission”. All we supposedly had to do was go to this hotel, in fact, he offered to drive us there and back, listen to a 60 minute presentation about the hotel and claim a guaranteed prize.
Of course, the prize would be revealed after the presentation and oh, we should pretend to be on our honeymoon. “So,” he said, “what do you want to do, let me take you?”. I declined saying I had a bike, but I would sure look into driving there. “Sure”, he said with less enthusiasm, “just tell them I sent you”, he said pointing at his very own PIN on the card.
I rounded the corner and before I chucked the card I scratch the bit that said do not scratch until after the presentation, to see what I would have won. Wow, $250 in discount vouchers to use the next time I come to Bali and stay at that place. I bet that is what ever other guaranteed winner will win.
Double Six in Seminyak
The Double Six Club in Seminyak is famous probably because it has an AJ Hacket Bungee Jumping platform towering over a 5m deep pool as it’s centre piece. We had read about it, wanted to go there at night and had a motorbike with a full tank of fuel at our disposal. So we went to find it.
Reading our map incorrectly we made several wrong turns and ended up at Batubelig – a good beach for surfing, but at the time and day we had found it, it has nothing but two hawkers selling polished sea-shells. Not being people who indulged in the pillage of our oceans, we had no interest in their wares, turned around and went back to try and figure out where we had gone wrong.
We did however spot Ku De Ta on our travels and mentally noted it’s location for a later soirée. Cruising through Seminyak with all it’s quaint stores, Julia got shopping pangs, and we both got hunger pangs. Warung Ocha was our random place of choice for lunch.
They had a mix rice counter where you mix the dishes, not the rice, as well as a menu, and spotting the pattern it was full of western food and only a few Balinese dishes. The restaurant was on a street corner separated from the road by only a narrow sidewalk, yet it featured a lovely open courtyard garden. Most interesting item on the menu and something I had to try was Sicko Juice.
Sicko Juice is green Spirulina with just a hint of banana. Particularly disgusting looking with a consistency to match, but shockingly delicious.
Having attended to our hunger pangs, Julia quelled her other pang as we trawled the main road, byroads and alleys of Seminyak.