In Reply to: Return trip to Bali ... Questions posted by cptyossarian on Saturday, 22. January 2005 at 02:47 Bali Time:
If you give "I Wayan Tagel" a call on +62 081 338 791 474 or drop him an email at wayantagel@hotmail.com, he will drive you and show you his beloved Bali without any hassle whatsoever. We found him and used him for 2 weeks June 2004 and will be using him again in June 2005 (4 weeks this time, ya). You will need to negotiate a day / half day rate with him but rest assured he will not rip you off and will provide very good service. He will show you as much or as little of Bali as you want - no strings attached. we often stopped for lunch at places he recommended and enjoyed chatting to him as much as we enjoyed the lunch - he loves a bit a babi gorang(sp) - suckling pig - if you are into it - my wife is, I'm not, so my loss.
BUT you will not doubt get other recommended drivers and I suggest you try a few - they will all be good, but some will be better than others ( some you will get on with better) and its good to spread your cash around several drivers anyway.
AND don't be too hard with the bargining - get a good price by all means, but just remember that the last 50,000 means much more to them than it does to you - its only $8. We often spent the whole day with Wayan and if we got back a bit late, we would give him extra cash for his trouble. Some days we would also send him a text to cancel the day - if we were too stuffed from the previous day - but we would do it early enough for him to pick up other jobs for the day - 730am usually. Having a local cell phone card made this possible and was extremely handy for phoning him and other shops that we were havning trouble finding - Wayan would get instructions.
have a wonderful trip,
Simon