You are at - Jotaro's Blog / AhPek Biker / Indonesia / Bali-Sumba 2023 / Day 8-9 | Go to D1/D2/D3/D4/D5/D6/D7
AhPek Biker - Riding Adventures
Indonesia Bali-Sumba Discovery 2023
Day D8-9: Shopping Days!
Sumba & Bali, Indonesia : Monday & Tuesday, 5th & 6th June 2023
Waingapu>Tambolaka>Tambolaka Airport (Sumba)>Lion Wings Air>Bali Ngurah Rai International Airport>Kuta (Bali).
Time: 8:00 am to 8:10 pm
Time Taken: 12 hrs. (road-trip from Waingapu to/fro Tanggedu Waterfall & Tenau Hills (including breakfast, tea-time, dinner, and stops at a scenic areas, & many photo opps).
1. Traffic Directions!
Traffic in Indonesia, is right-hand drive, so drive/cycle on the left. Same thing applies when crossing the road, take note of the direction in which traffic is approaching from!
2. Getting from Bali to Sumba.
From Bali to Sumba we flew Lion Wings Air, departing from Ngurah Rai Airport and arriving at Tambolaka's Lede Kalumbang Airport. We stayed a night at Tambolaka before going by local hired vans to get to Waingapu and the surrounding area. The basic return air-fare from Denpasar to Tambolaka was around IDR2,300,000 (MYR710 or USD155) per pax without checked in luggage. Online bookings can be done via the Lion Air Website.
There are direct flights from Denpasar to Waingapu, but oddly the fares are more expensive, almost double. So it did make sense that for a big group like ours, the first option of flight-vans was cheaper.
3. Covid-19 & Customs Requirments
We applied for Covid-19 clearance through the e-forms submitted to the SatuSehat mobile app, which required uploading of vaccination details & PDF copies of vaccination certificates, and got on-line approval. Upon arrival at Bali Airport, there was a small counter for SatuSehat, but it was not manned, so perhaps this is not required for Bali.
Submission for customs e-clearance is advised for getting past the airport customs without a fuss. E-submission can be done prior to leaving for Indonesia, Click here for to access and fill up the Indonesian E-CD (Electronic Customs Declaration) forms for approval. Upon successful application, a QR Code is given, save this to your phone and show it to the customs officer upon arrival. With a quick scan, and one is cleared to enjoy one's holiday.
4. Clearing Immigration for Senior Citizens and families with infants, etc.
Prior to the pandemic, there were special counters at the Malaysian & Indonesian immigration exit points for senior citizens above 60 years old, but these are not there anymore. No worries though, if there are long queues, just asked any helpful officer for help for senior citizens, and one will be directed to a fast-track counter.
5. Route & Traffic Conditions
At Sumba, traffic is slightly heavy at the urban areas of Tambolaka and Waingapu, but there were not much jams. Roads are narrower but still pleasant to drive on. This past few years, Kuta, and the surrounding regions have developed tremendously and traffic along most roads can be quite busy. Drive with care and do take note that there are many motorcyclists around.
It's our last day in Sumba, and we headed on a four-hour drive from Waingapu to Tambolaka and flew off to Bali. It's sort of a shopping day today with stops at a sporting goods shop in Waingapu and later in the evening doing some souveinir and food-stuff shopping at Kuta.
6. Weather
Weather at Bali differs a lot between the lowland and highlands. In June, the average day temperature at Kuta was 28°C, while night ones averaged 24°C. Up in Kintamani, it was 22°C, and 15°C respectively.
The best time to visit Bali & Sumba is April-June and September, just before and just after high season. It's still dry season, it's slightly less humid, and room prices and villa rentals can be 30-50% cheaper than during high season. It's a cooler season.
Useful weather forecast sites for the Indonesia is AccuWeather. For more detailed weather, including cloud cover and wind speed, use Weatherspark and Ventusky.
7. Communicating with Each Other
When travelling in a group it's important to be able to communicate with each other, especially if one got lost from the rest. Compared to the our previous trip 5-years ago, this time round it was more difficult to get the Indonesian pre-paid phone sim card. For security reasons, there is a need to register ones's passport and phone's IMEI #1 and IMEI #2. One cannot just go to any local shops to buy the sim card as they are reluctant or not equiped to provide such a service. As such, most local phone shops sells only to locals.
It is EASIEST to get the sim cards at the airport. There are booth selling these just after getting past customs and into the arrival hall of Bali (Ngurah Rai) Airport, the local staff there are at hand to help register one's passport and IMEIs. We opted for Telkomsel's as it provides the best coverage at Bali, and even at some of the remote areas of Sumba, and got their Tourist prepaid simcard with 16+8 GB of data valid for 30 days at IRD250K (MYR77 or USD17). 3G internet is available in the more populated areas but can drop to the slower GPRS or even Edge in remote areas. Failing to get a sim card at the airport one can try to get it at some of the Telkomsel's shop, click here for Bali shops locations and click here for Sumba shop locations.
It is possible to get these Tourist prepaid simcard on-line, but registration of passport & IMEIs are still required and one will have to select an official pick-up point, which are only available in the Bali and Mandalika Lombok areas.
Most hotels, motels, home-stays, restaurants, and airports have free Wifi; but do note that public free wifi may not be secure and registration could be required. But one can safe on one's mobile data by using these especially for uploading or downloading videos.
8. Communicating with Locals
As Bali, is a favorite tourist destinations, many locals speak fairly good English. At the smaller towns, locals speak some rudimentary English. The older generation speak very little English, so knowing some basic Bahasa Indonesia (or even better - Balinese language) will come in handy and also warm one up to the locals.
At Sumba, except at hotels and up-market restaurant, very few locals speak English, so some basic Bahasa Indonesia will come in handy. The older Sumbese speak Sumba languages which are a subgroup of the Austronesian language family, that is closely related to the Hawu–Dhao languages.
9. Getting Around
We were on a recce tour group and paid MYR1,700 per pax for ground arrangements that include hotels, breakfast and van transportation, other meals & tips for guide and drivers were not include - all in cost came to around MYR4,000 including some minimum shopping. They were 13 of us including the two tour guides. At Bali, a large 15-seater van with driver took us around. In Sumba, 3 smaller Toyota Avanza took us from Tambolaka to Waingapu and around these cities.
Those interested in joining the guided tour can contact Nik at +6017-4881917. Those who are keen in having their own free and easy tour, contact Bali van driver Made at +6281-5580-02922 or Sumba van drivers Rian Djara at +6281-2387-26367 & Lih Man at +62 82-3398-64280 Sumba Driver.
If planning for one's own; Bali has a wide range of accommodations, ranging from six-stars hotels, to homestays and even back-packers hostels. If one is not fussy, cheap accommodations can be found in Bali, for as low as 170k Rupiahs per twin-sharing room per night in Kuta; click here for range of hotels in Bali. In Sumba 3-4 star hotels can be found at around MYR150 (USD35) per room per night even for those beach hotels ;click here for range of hotels in Sumba.
8. Places & Things of Interests
There were many scenic and interesting places of interest; but one should not miss the following (Note: click on the GPS coordinates for directional map to the respective places):
At Sumba:
At Bali:
9. Food
Day 8:
Breakfast: Inclusive buffet breakfast at Tanto Hotel Waingapu (GPS: -9.65819, 120.27023) in Waingapu.
Dinner: Burger and Panini Sandwich at B' Couple Restaurant (GPS: -8.72542, 115.17078) at Kuta Paradiso.
Day 9:
Lunch: Take-away Nasi Timbel from road-side stall.
10. Accommodations
Our stay for the night was at Hotel ZIA Bali (GPS: -8.72353, 115.17295) at Kuta, was included in our tour package, online booking shows cost as around MYR150 / USD40 per double/twin room per night.
11. Navigation
I used MapMyRide to track our routes and stops. Geo-tagging of places of interest was via FaceBook or Google Maps.
___________________________________________________________________________
PRELUDE
The previous day with, Waingapu as our base, we continued to explore east with visits to view Sumban tribal sculptures at Palindi Piarakuku Hills, drove past the Red Savana of Watumbaka, went for a dip at the hidden Waimarang Waterfalls, before ending the day dancing with the Walakiri Mangroves.
Today we say goodbye to Sumba with a drive to Tambolaka to fly back to Bali! The following morning we visited an art market in Kuta before flying back to Kuala Lumpur.
___________________________________________________________________________
THE TRIP: DAY 8
It's time to say goodbye to Sumba as we headed on a four-hour drive from Waingapu to Tambolaka and flew off to Bali. It's sort of a shopping day today with stops at a sporting goods shop in Waingapu and later in the evening doing some souveinir and food-stuff shopping at Kuta.
(Click here for D8: Waingapu-Tambolaka-Kuta Direction Map)
___________________________________________________________________________
DAY 8: SHOPPING WAINGAPU & SUMBA TO KUTA
Just as we finished our hote breakfast the "shop" came to us. Right at the carpark, a local man was draping out Sumbanese Ikat cloths, displaying their tribal art to attract us. This just reminded me of our stay at the house-boats at Lake Dhl in Kashmir, where at night the local craftmen would lug their wares (Cashmere cloth, etc) into our boats to sell.
As we left Waingapu, saw some horses at the road-side. These are not the famed, proud, wild horses of the Sumba, this one looked reined in, no wonder it looks rather weary & sad!
These two here seem to be digging for something in hay stack. Perhaps they are truffle hogs digging for truffles. Would be great if there are truffles here on the island!
4:40 - Boarded our Lion Wings Air at ta to head back to Bali. As we flew off, down below we saw one of those mysterious round lakes, while up int the sky small puffy white cloud waved us goodbye.
More shopping, this time at Krisna Oleh Oleh Department Store. This place is big and has a wide variety of local products such as souvenirs, accessories, foodstfuff. While the girls were busy shopping, I was admiring this Barong statue; this one seems special as it had strips of papers with Sanskrit sutra chants hanging from it.
There is also a section on artwork ranging from traditional & contemporary Balinese art to modern ones like this fiery rendering of a leopard.
TILL TOMORROW THEN, GOOD NIGHT!
___________________________________________________________________________
THE TRIP: DAY 9
(Zoom out to see Gunung Baluran South Java)
___________________________________________________________________________
DAY 9: KUTA WALK-ABOUT
A beautiful morning with blue skies greeted us. After a good hotel buffet breakfast, we took a walk to the Pasar Seni Kuta (Kuta Art Market). At the entrance statues of there Legong Dancers greeted us.
But before going to the art shops, a short detour to the Pura Pakendungan temple .....
To one side of the temples are a couple of Gajamina, an elephant-headed mythical figure with the body of a fish.
Close up view of one of the Gajamina.
The Kuta Art Market had stalls in a couple of single storey building and some others housed in a 2-storey building. Unfortunately, many stalls at the 2-storey building were closed - in fact some blocks seems to being demolished. This was the same for many of the buildings along the way here. Perhaps this locality is undergoing some gentrification.
This place is not really an art market, unlike the Sukawati Art Market in Ubud. Most of the shops here actually sells souvenirs, clothings, bags, etc.
There are only very few pieces of Indonesian artwork on sale, so don't expect too much.
But don't despair at the far end of the road, almost at the seaside, is the Shelter Kebencanaan Baruna, (Baruna Disaster Shelter). It is a shelter dedicated to Baruna/Varuna, the Hindu god of the seas & oceans, with hope of avoiding disasters like the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.
The adjacent beach is called Pantai Segara, we did cycle past this during our 2018 Brompton Bali event. Slightly ahead is the Kuta Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Center (GPS: -8.72319, 115.16976).
With that we adjourned back to our hotel and made our way to the airport for our return flight to Malaysia.
Up at the airport, other than foodstuff, shops here also sold Batik toy dolls .....
..... Barong busts .....
As we flew away from Bali, down below at South Java, we espied this extict volcano. This is the Gunung Baluran, located within the Baluran National Park in South Java.
My photo through the airplane window does not do this place justice, click here for better Gunung Baluran Images.
It had been a wonderful nine days in Indonesia which reflected what was said in the above poster we saw at the airport "Embrace All The Wonderful Experiences". We did indeed have a very varied wonderful time!
Matur suksma!
(That's Thank you in Balinese)
___________________________________________________________________________________
Related Blogs:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
___________________________________________________________________________________
You may also like :
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Malaysia - KevinTheBigCity Tattoos, Kuala Lumpur : July 2014 A look at a young man's simple but meaningful tattoos |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| China-Yunnan Day 7 & 8 |
You are at - Jotaro's Blog / AhPek Biker / Indonesia / Bali-Sumba 2023 / Day 8-9 | Go to D1/D2/D3/D4/D5/D6/D7
If you like this, view my other blogs at Jotaro's Blog
(comments most welcomed below. if you like this pls share via facebook or twitter)
