Escaping Mt Agung: Nature gives zero F’s about my vacation
Whelp, I planned a 3 week trip to Ubud, Bali knowing that that off in the distance, (20-30 miles away) a large, volatile volcano called Mt Agung (9,944 feet at the summit) was building up an arsenal for a massive eruption. We were lucky enough to have climbed this beast two years ago. I thought I would risk the trip knowing that if it did erupt, I wouldn’t be in imminent danger (I was far enough from the evacuation zone to feel safe.) I actually did end up evacuating, not mandatory, but for my lungs and peace of mind. Here’s a breakdown of my 5 day super stressful solo journey through hell while escaping Mt Agung.
Side note: As stressful and dramatic as my evacuation from Mt Agung felt for ME, I am conscious of what the local Balinese people must be going through and experiencing. The Balinese people are some of the friendliest, humble people I have met and are always smiling. It’s sad to think about so many lives disrupted and tourism dollars lost due to this beautiful disaster. Authorities wanted to evacuate 100,000 people in the exclusion zone, but were only able to convince 60,000 people to leave. Many Balinese people ignored warnings and stayed behind, not willing to leave their livestock or felt like elderly family members couldn’t make the trip. Thousands of lives have been disrupted as many people are currently in shelters across the island. I can only hope (prayers are not my thing) that these people don’t have to relive the 1963 eruption that killed over a thousand people.
Escaping Mt Agung: DAY 1 (Mt. Agung coughs up some ash)
I’m enjoying yoga, $7 massages (I did contract a fungal infection but that’s for a later post), raw vegan organic food in beautiful cafes, incredible shopping, lush jungles and ummm there’s ash reigning down on Ubud and you can see the soot in the air.
Breakfast at my fav Ubud cafe
Denpasar airport closes down due to the ash in the air (flying through an ash cloud is a HUGE safety hazard for planes as it can lead to total engine failure). At this point, my throat is starting to burn from the ash but I’m not worried enough to spoil my relaxing vacay. I start thinking maybe it might be smart to find a respirator mask in case it gets worse.
Escaping Mt Agung: DAY 2 (I almost died)
So I woke up and I couldn’t stop spitting and coughing up this white, foamy stuff from my lungs and that’s when I started getting concerned. My Airbnb neighbor said that he woke up with his lungs feeling like he had smoked a bowl, 2 packs of cigarettes, and made out with a chimney. Now I’m starting to feel like I should start to make my way further away from the ash cloud, and the toxic sulfur dioxide that was produced from the volcano. The more I start reading about the harmful effects, the more my anxiety starts to rage.
View of Mt. Agung erupting from Mt. Batur
Pro tip: O2 is for inhaling, CO2 is for exhaling
My two neighbors and I go out to breakfast, and I thought it would be a brilliant idea to wear TWO face masks (actually quite stupid). We go for a ten minute walk to get breakfast, I sit down and OMG I am passing out….like literally about to loose consciousness. I ripped off my mask and here I am just desperate for whatever sugary food or drink I could find, even stealing my friends juice that had just been served. Apparently I was hyperventilating too, I just remember my friend trying to tell me to breathe. I spent the next twenty minutes on a wet bathroom floor of this cafe dry heaving (if you have seen bathrooms in Asia, I was clearly not doing well) and spent about half the day super sick. Not realizing that I had actually CO2 poisoned myself by wearing TWO masks, (I realized what I had done to myself TWO days later) I was REALLY starting to stress not knowing what caused this (was I poisoned by Sulfur Dioxide or what?) and thinking that now I had to get the HELL away from this volcano.
My two neighbors and I decide that we are going to head down south to a beach further away from the volcano. I’m a wreck at this point, I packed up my things in a sick fog and told them to just try to make sure they get me in the car. We are waiting for our driver and at this point, I’m starting to perk up again and gain some steam. I still have this gut feeling that I need to just get further away from the volcano. I’m asking about rides west and then get overwhelmed by a wave a nausea and that feeling of passing out again. My neighbors thought I was CRAZY to trek towards Java alone so I decided I should probably stay with them until I was at least feeling better. I trusted them and knew that they weren’t going to let me die.
Can you take me to Canguu?
Ubud to Canguu
We made it down to a really sweet villa in a beach town called Canguu. I had a nice little rest in bed and started becoming my self again but couldn’t rid myself of the gnawing feeling that I wanted to get further away from the volcano although I could tell the air was much less polluted where I was. Mt Agung was expected to have an even bigger eruption and I didn’t want to be stranded in Bali with thousands of other tourists with an enormous ash and toxic sulfur dioxide cloud hanging over me. I was still hawking up phlegm from my lungs and there was no telling when the airport would reopen. The boys went out to the beach, and I decided to pack up again and start heading west to Pulukan on my own (I later got messages and phone calls from them telling me how crazy I was for disappearing on my own.)
Just one day without a natural disaster please
What I thought was only going to be a 2 hour drive to Pulukan turned into a 4 hour drive because we literally ran into the tail winds of a tropical cyclone with monsoon rains. I thought that I was getting out of the danger zone by escaping a volcano but ended up running into crazy wind, trees down on the road, flooding and I am practically having a heart attack. I later learned that there had been tornadoes in the area that night.
This drive took forever!
I finally made it to my nice hotel, Bombora Medewi Wave Lodge in a downpour right after an exhausting, stressful journey. At this point my budget is completely out the window, all I want is to sleep in a nice cushy king sized bed nestled in between 8 pillows.
FU budget, I’ll take the room with the biggest shower please
Escaping Mt Agung: DAY 3 (Journey to Java)
The next day, I woke up to this gorgeous view and a lovely breakfast.
I hired a driver to take me about 2 hours to Gilimanuk where there is a ferry that would take me to the neighboring Indonesian island to Bali called Java. During the ride to the ferry, my driver who barely spoke English, manages to tell me to be careful in Java since I was alone and to keep my purse close to me. I asked him what it was like and it seemed to me like the Hindu Balinese don’t travel there as much because it is predominately a Muslim island. Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I asked him if I could pay him to escort me to my hotel. He politely declined, but loaded me up with bottles of water when we arrived at the ferry terminal.
To the Ferry!
Ferry to Banyuwangi
The ferry ride was supposed to be 30 minutes but was more like an hour by the time we docked. I was relieved to meet an English speaking couple from Stockholm, Sweden who were trying to evacuate from the volcano as well.
On the ferry to Banyuwangi
We realized our hotels in Banyuwangi on Java were close together and decided to share a taxi. I was hoping and assumed that I would see taxis when I got off the ferry (I was specifically looking for Blue Bird Taxi because I know they are reputable in Indonesia) but nope no taxis, just a few men standing around trying to get you in their car. I had previously called my fancy hotel to see if they could send a driver (any hotel or Airbnb in Bali would have been accommodating) but was told to just take a taxi and quickly hung up on. Now I travel alone, but always in places with good public transportation and places I feel safe. I’m adventurous but not crazy.
I’m not so sure about this Banyuwangi place
We decided that we could walk to our hotels, it didn’t look too far on the map, and we headed out down the bumpy pot-holed road. 2 or 3 times, someone in a bus with no door would stop and try to give you a ride for a small amount of cash. Eventually we got tired of walking and jumped into one of the buses with a group of sweet older Muslim ladies smiling at us. I quickly realized that the island of Java was NOT like Bali at all. The buildings were dilapidated, didn’t seem tourist friendly at all and people didn’t speak English like they did on the island of Bali. I wasn’t surprised when I was told later that a common tourist scam is for a bus driver to dump you somewhere on the side of the road and a taxi will try to pick you up, forcing you to pay an inflated price to get to your destination.
Oh sorry, did you want to take the train?
I choked down gross kinda slimy fried rice lunch with my new Swedish friends at their hotel and decided to start planning the next leg of my journey to Surabaya where there is a large international airport. I thought I would be able to get a train ticket to Surabaya, I had heard the scenery was gorgeous and you can get a nice 1st class seat. My heart sunk when I went to book a ticket and the tickets were completely sold out for the next 7 days!! I later learned that the train had been cancelled because of major flooding from a cyclone in Java that had killed 19 people in an landslide.
I managed to ask the front desk of the hotel to call me a taxi (English wasn’t good) and finally one came 30 minutes later to take me 5 minutes down the road and totally overcharged me. I should have just walked down the dilapidated road to my hotel but I just wasn’t feeling comfortable at all on this island by myself with people stopping on the road trying to get you in their car. By the time I got to my hotel to check in, I was totally beat, insecure because I didn’t have a plan, scared because I was still coughing up phlegm, and arrived in tears. I checked into my villa (again budget is out the window) and tried to plan the next leg of my journey.
I got lucky to score one of the last rooms available
I tried to book another night at my hotel just in case I couldn’t find a ride to Surabaya, but they were sold out. I was later told that EVERYTHING on the east coast of Java was sold out and I was lucky to have found my room. Internet wasn’t good so I struggled to figure out how I was going to get out of Banyuwangi for hours.
Umm, now what?
I decided I would walk around the resort looking for other tourists trying to escape the volcano to figure out a strategy. At this point, I would have been happy to go anywhere…Dubai, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore…literally ANY large city because I was not comfortable where I was alone. I met two super friendly Australian ladies that were trying to escape the volcano in Bali as well. Since my internet connection was horrible, they gave me the phone number for a travel agent that they had booked their flight to Jakarta through. I was SO relieved that I was able to book the last ticket from Blimbingsari (the airport in Banyuwangi) to Jakarta the next day on their same flight. I had some anxiety knowing that it was going to be a tiny little airport on a small plane, but relieved because at least I would be able to tag along with my new friends.
Escaping Mt Agung: DAY 4 (WTF?)
I had some nice sleep and was feeling pretty relaxed at this point because I had a flight to a big city (Jakarta, Indonesia). I had been there before and was going to be traveling with some new friends so I felt okay. I was supposed to meet the two Australian ladies at 1 pm to head to the airport, but when I checked out of the hotel, they left a note for me at the front desk saying that they decided to take an earlier flight since they were scared they wouldn’t make their connection. The note also said that they kept the car they had booked and it was already paid for. That was nice of them! I knew there was another couple from Frankfurt, Germany that I had previously met that had the same flight booked so I invited them to ride with me. I was happy to ride with someone at this point, because my super high stressed paranoid brain kept telling me that I was going to get abducted and sold into the sex trade every time I got in the car with someone alone.
This is fine. Just keep telling yourself this is fine.
We get to the airport and unsure of where to check in. I knew it was going to be a small airport but not THIS small. We realized there was only ONE desk to check in, ONE security checkpoint and only ONE gate. I still have this nervous feeling that something might go wrong, and whelp, it did when we heard over the speaker that our flight to Jakarta had been cancelled due to the weather. I popped a Xanax (only used for emergencies) and tried to calm myself the F down. I’m freaking out because I had heard that ALL of the hotels were booked in the area and Banyuwangi was NOT a place I wanted to get stuck alone. Also, there was no cell service or WiFi at that airport. I’m thinking I might have to get back on the ferry and go back to Bali, the place I was running from in the first place, to find a place to stay and feel comfortable.
All the people on the flight were taken on a bus to the “bosses office” to see what could be done. We all put our names on a list and waited around for a few hours to see what our options were. No one in the office spoke English well, so it was hard to figure out exactly what was going on. Some people that had connections were being taken aside and I’m getting nervous again thinking everyone will get on a flight except for me and I’ll be stranded at the airport. My friends from Frankfurt had already run off without me. Everyone at this point is exhausted and sharing what food and water we had with each other. I wasn’t even sure there was anywhere that I could buy more food or water at the airport and it was blazing hot.
Cancelled again
We were SO relieved when we were issued tickets to the international airport in Surabaya and from there we would be able to get a ticket to Jakarta or another big city. At this point I was still really nervous about the small plane and tropical cyclones, ash clouds and all the other bad weather monsters that make you worried about flying out of this joke they called an airport. Our bags had already been taken and 5:30 rolls around (when the flight was scheduled), 5:45, then 6:00. That’s when we hear the announcement that the 2nd flight had been cancelled. OMG no this cannot be happening. Again everyone is freaking out, although everyone but me has at least a companion with them so I’m super freaking out. My feelings about being left alone in Banyuwangi were confirmed when another girl described it as “This place is creepy”. So it wasn’t just me that felt uneasy.
New friends
I made friends with 3 of a nicest girls from London and immediately fell in love with them.
New friends!
A couple hours later, we were told that we were going to be put on a bus to Surabaya that night. I had heard that there was flooding on the way to Java due to the tropical cyclone and it was taking extra long to get there. I was told it was taking 19 hours by bus from Denpasar, Bali to get there because the bus drivers were having to make detours around all the flooding and mudslides. Not knowing what adventures lie ahead on this bus ride, I did find a place to buy a ton of water, sugary drinks, chips, cookies…whatever I could find. When the bus finally arrived, we were told that there was only room for 3 more people. I’m panicked again, thinking I am going to be left alone again but was super relieved that they were able to make room for 4 so I could stay with my new friends.
Bus to Surabaya and less than stellar hotel service
Loooong bus ride to Surabaya
After a 7 hour bus ride where everyone was so tired we were literally lying on top of each other (great way to feel instantly close to people you have only known for two hours) I was so relieved when we finally arrived at a Swiss Belinn in Surabaya (I had stayed in one in Jakarta previously and was super happy with it) at around 2:00 AM. We tried to call Garuda Airlines to figure out when our flight was to Jakarta (we didn’t even know if we were booked on a flight since the people at the Blimbingsari airport barely spoke English). No one could get a hold of the airline that night so we decided to just show up to the airport early in the morning to see what would happen.
I was surprised when we were all given our own bedrooms at the hotel but so happy to have a nice shower and a cushy bed. I’m trying to get a few hours of sleep (my alarm was set for 5:30 AM) and my phone rings at 3:30 AM. It’s the front desk calling to tell me that they needed me to switch to another room because Garuda airlines was only going to pay for one room for two people. I’m already in bed and thinking are you serious right now, what is a the point of this?! I tell him in a bitchy tone that I’m leaving in two hours! He’s says he’ll call me back but never does and I FINALLY get my 2 hours of sleep.
This bed was nice for the 1.5 hours I was in it
Escaping Mt Agung: DAY 5 (RUN!!!)
The next morning we arrive at the airport bright and early and explain our situation to the help desk. The lady holds up a printout of all the flights to Jakarta for that day and they were ALL full. Turns out we weren’t even booked for a flight to Jakarta, we were just on standby. Great, another obstacle to overcome. We spend an hour or two waiting at the help desk to see what could be done. I already had a Air Asia flight booked from Jakarta to Bangkok the next day and I had already forfeited one night of my hotel in Jakarta. I tell the girls that if only they can get a flight to Jakarta, just to go ahead and go since I’m just so relieved to be in a large city. I told them I might cry a little if they left but I felt like I would be fine in Surabaya alone.
I’m discussing my options with the AirAsia desk and one of my new friends busts in, and says “Kim, we have to go, RUN!” We run full speed to the bag drop, literally leave our bags there without being tagged or anything and run full speed towards a plane that was about to take off. Totally out of breath we get on the plane right before they close the hatch. I don’t even care at this point whether my bag makes it or not, I was just so happy to have made it to Surabaya and on a flight to Jakarta (big cities that I felt comfortable traveling in alone.)
Goodbyes to new friends
To my surprise, all of our bags actually made it to our destination! The girls stayed at the airport to figure out how they were going to get a flight to London, we all had a group hug and I made it to my nice hotel in Jakarta. The next day, I got on a flight to Bangkok that was ON TIME (couldn’t even believe it) and met Scott at our hostel in Bangkok (he flew for free in Business class! Read how you can too here!)where he got the BIGGEST hug of his life. My escape from Mt. Agung had finally concluded!
5 days of stress that I never want to repeat. Moral of the story, watch out for erupting volcanoes! Here is a map of my whole 5 day journey.
5 days and over 300 miles of stress!
Escaping Mt Agung: final thoughts
Moral of the story, if you’re planning a Bali vacation while there is still a threat of Mt Agung erupting, still go, but be prepared! Since my escape (end of November), the feared massive volcanic eruption has not happened. Although, Mt Agung is still on high alert, officials say that Bali is safe and danger is over. If you are staying within a 6 km (3.7 miles) radius of Mt Agung, be prepared to drop everything and evacuate! If you are outside of this exclusion zone, the biggest threat is air quality and the airport being shut down. If this happens, you could always trek west to Java like I did, or take a bus from Denpasar all the way to Surabaya Airport.
Also, don’t even think about trying to climb Mt Agung during this time like two crazy Australian tourists just did. The Indonesian government is prepared to evacuate tourists if needed. A lot of the amazing Balinese people I’ve met depend on tourism dollars to keep this island afloat. Bali is an island of amazing people, beautiful art, impressive temples, gorgeous beaches, unique culture and I strongly suggest you visit. I would absolutely go back right now if I could, I would just be prepared with a respirator mask and a plan!
Stay tuned for our adventures through Thailand and Vietnam!
