Hi, Mephisto. We made it there last May, once again with exquisite timing, in the middle of the SARS scare. We'd made reservations a few months in advance and saw no real reason to modify our plans, even though we booked the trip on EVA with a stop in Taipei. Now EVA did change some of their plans, and cancelled a lot of their flights. They called and told us that they had cancelled the Taipei-Bali flight the day we wanted it, but rather than spend a night in Los Angeles, we took them up on an offer to put us up at the Taipei airport hotel overnight at their expense. Well, that sounded like a good way to get over the jet lag and maybe go have a look around Taiwan but when we got there we weren't motivated enough to go into town, between the SARS and the jet lag so we hung around the airport all day. It was like a scene out of the Twilight Zone, because after the early morning flights left, virtually all the flights were cancelled that day. I walked about a mile of concourses without seeing two people. The shops at the airport were mostly closed and of those that were open, none were fully staffed, and most had masks on, so that added to the surrealness of the experience. When we flew out the next day there were less than two dozen passengers on that 767, and almost as many flight attendants, all without faces.
Bali itself was almost empty of tourists, Not only was it not yet high season, they had not recovered from the bombing and now had to contend with SARS shutting Asia down. Sp, in Ubud, there were even more offers of transport and invitations to look in the shops than usual, but it was done in reasonably good humor and less bothersome than, say, on a typical Caribbean island. We spent four nights there, and on our last day ran into the guy that had been our driver (we usually rent cars but on Bali it's just as cheap to hire a driver for the day - a strange economic situation from our point of view but an unfortunate economic reality for much of the rest of the world) and took a ride into the central highlands area with him. We then went out to the decidedly more primitive (except where we stayed) northeast end of Bali for 3 nights, where there are no phone lines, and the nearest Internet access, unlike in Ubud where there is an Internet "cafe" on every streetcorner, is a 45 minute drive to the upstairs of a grocery store where there is a room full of ancient machines with 16 megs of RAM sharing a very slow dial up line. We also went to the Lovina area for the first time, staying a bit east of the main tourist areas. Here the beach was pretty full of people wanting to sell something, but we spent most of our time inland. Here's some links to places we've stayed at. Quite reasonable.
buanabali.com
klubkokos.com
Our driver in Ubud:
klubkokos.com
klubkokos.com
bluemoonvilla.com
bali-hotels.co.uk
If you want any more info, PM me. I won't be much help for anything in the Kuta or Nusa Dua main tourist areas, but I reccommend any of the places above. Hope you can make it out there some day. |
