Trip to Bali - Planning

So it’s been quite a lot of time since I have been touring, touring as on a bike, the last time I did was during Laos and my brief stay in India around May and the GAP was killing me, killing me like MAD. I tried to check out the options in Singapore and they are DAMN expensive, so I started to look out for options in the nearby Malaysia, and though it is expensive there as well but a trip in Malaysia is well worth the moolah.

There is the Genting and Cameroon Highlands which are a great place to go around on a bike. So I started to find the affordable options and luckily for me, there was also a 4 day weekend showing in my corporate calendar. Mails started flowing to people, who had been on bike trips across Malaysia, bike rentals and hotels but almost around a month before we were supposed to ride, my partner backed off, he thought I was f***ing with him when I said that I am planning a bike ride across Malaysia and my dream shattered.

My budget didn’t permit me to go on the ride alone so I had to cancel it but not until when I started planning a trip to Bali, though this wasn’t planned as a bike trip as I had no idea if it would be wise to go on a bike trip in Bali. Newaz the trip to Bali was working out and I decided to reach Bali and decide if I would go ahead for the Bike Trip.

I was supposed to meet some friends who were flying from India for Bali and I had never been on a trip with any one of them, leave trip I was like almost meeting them for the first time so I wasn’t sure if any one of them would think in that direction. So after the normal Hi’s Hello’s and Ice breakings I put my point of covering all the places we had initially planned on bikes and to a surprise all of them showed interest, but there was a problem, we were 4 of us 2 guys and 2 girls and the other guy wasn’t a tourer kind of person but the girls were all enthu though none of them had actually been on bike trips and seeing the interest of the girls, the other guy also agreed.

Once we checked into the hotels we started to look out for bikes, but most of the bikes on rent in Bali were the gearless ones, we also realized that these are the best ones to tour around in Bali coz of the Traffic, Language Problem and the lack of directions, using the gearless ones would make our lives easier since we wouldn’t have to worry about the problem of riding a geared bike and at the same time the girls also could ride if they wished. So we decided to go ahead and rent them and we got an amazing deal, if we paid in advance for the 3 days, we could have the bike for free for the first day. We jumped at this option and rented 2 of them, both Yamaha’s 100cc and gearless. All we had to do now was get a map and fuel.

In anticipation and fear of how the ride might turn out, we thought we will first explore the area so that we get comfortable with the bikes and understanding the riding styles.

As it turned out, the decision to take the gearless bikes was not bad after all as the other guy was comfortable with riding it and so were the girls, none of them had an idea of what had I planned for them the next day #evil grin