The alarm went off at 5:15 and wasn't exactly welcome, but we were getting up for a good cause: we were flying to Bali! Fifteen minutes later we were in Romain's car heading for Darwin airport to take off at 6:50. No obstacles in sight, and we landed in Denpasar at 8:50 local time, our second time-zone change in barely ten days. As soon as we left the airport, we already faced a problem. Everyone had warned us to avoid at all costs the taxis waiting at the exit that wouldn't leave you alone. We got through that first stage unscathed, but we still had to find a way to get to the hotel. We decided to walk a bit further into town and quickly found an official blue taxi with a meter.
240,000 rupiah poorer and an hour's drive later, we were at the Serene Guesthouse. Two surprises awaited us. First, our host spoke fairly decent French and told us what he was doing there. That was the good surprise. The bad one was that he'd booked a driver for us when we hadn't asked for anything of the kind and had no intention of spending 400,000 rupiah just to have someone at our disposal. After a little clarification, the matter was settled, and we took an Uber to a monkey forest. We ate at a very nice little roadside eatery a kilometre from our destination. The waiters didn't really speak English and we didn't speak a word of Indonesian, so ordering was a bit complicated, but we managed in the end and enjoyed our meal to the sound of the chickens that populated the place. Once we'd finished eating, we set off and reached the forest. As soon as we got to the car park, we saw primates everywhere. They were eating leftover human food out of the bins. We went a little way into the forest following the path, taking care not to frighten the animals.
That wasn't enough for one of them, who decided to threaten us. I had to pick up a stick and wave it at him menacingly to make him back off. A few metres further on, we came across a fairly violent fight between two monkeys. Clearly it wasn't wise to provoke them too much. We finished the walk accompanied by one of the forest guides, who walked and chatted with us.
We went back to the restaurant to use the Wi-Fi to order an Uber. That's when we discovered that the taxi lobby ruled in Bali too. The driver the app assigned us contacted me to ask for our location. We didn't understand, as it showed automatically on his screen, but he then explained that a taxi driver absolutely mustn't see him picking up customers. In short, he was scared to death, and we decided to cancel and try our luck on foot.
We followed the road hoping to find a taxi, and a hundred metres further on a man pulled up beside us. As expected, he asked an exorbitant price to get to our destination, and Cassandre negotiated hard for a reasonable fare to the first temple of the day. As you'd expect, it was a real tourist attraction. A swarm of people of different nationalities criss-crossed the paths of the place of worship. As for us, we took a few photos and wandered around a bit before leaving. We decided to try Uber again: our driver asked exactly the same questions as the previous one via WhatsApp, and once in his car he explained that they were really afraid of the taxis, so they preferred to make sure their customers were in a fairly quiet area.
On the way to the second temple, he even showed us places where you could order an Uber, and we arrived at Tanah Lot temple a little wiser. We'd clearly landed in Disneyland. There were dozens of little shops, dozens of restaurants and hundreds of tourists. The temple is unusual in that it's built on the beach and slightly raised, making it a perfect spot for sunset photos. The party was somewhat spoiled by the crowds (including us, of course) but also by a huge cloud on the horizon that completely covered the setting sun. It was almost comical to see all these people who'd come specially for it leave with their tails between their legs. We stayed a while anyway to take photos as night fell. We then walked three kilometres to a restaurant and finally went home, not without further trouble with Uber.