Bali Pt 7 - Bali to Yogja by Bus

From Bali to Yogja by Bus

On 29th Nov 2014, we took the overnight bus from Bali's Ubung Bus Terminal in Denpasar to Yogjakarta, Central Java. It was a 19 hours journey that began at 3.00pm in Denpasar and ended at 10.00am in Yogja, Java the next morning.

To give a background, we had actually booked the bus tickets in advance (3 days earlier) in Kuta town. We asked our driver if he could take us to the ticket counter of the bus company we had in mind. Our driver stopped us at an agent office of the bus company, and so we did the booking and paid in full. We also got to select our seats. The bus fare included the following :-

(1) bus tickets

(2) two meals
(3) one blanket and pillow each

(4) ferry crossing

(5) shuttle service from Yogja town to our hotel

The bus we travelled in was an air-conditioned Executive Class coach with ample leg space. To be exact there were 28 seats in total, two drivers, one toilet (only for pissing), one blanket, one pillow and reading light.

We reached Gilimanuk within 5 hours and it took some time for the bus to board the ferry. The moment the bus boarded and stopped, people got off the bus to climb up to the deck above. Here you can either sit and watch the sea, or have a hot drink with instant noodles. You can also use the toilets here, quite decent, which was the first thing we did as the bus never stopped once until now. I am talking about 5 hours of non-stop travel from Bali to Gilimanuk. It was about 8.00pm when we reached the ferry terminal. 

The crossing took about 40mins. It was raining that day so the crossing was slow, I think. It was foggy all around that we could barely see the other ferries that were also crossing. But we could see their spotlights. Most of the seats were wet with rain water.

As for the meals provided by the bus company, the first meal was a pre-packed box of one doughnut, peanuts, water and sweets. They distributed this before the start of the journey, that is once we were seated in the bus. The second meal was dinner proper where we got down at a rest stop and ate rice , gravy, vegetables, fish and chicken with ginger tea. You have to show your bus tickets to the waiter before collecting your food. So, remember to keep your tickets. You can also use the toilets for free. The dinner was late, at about 10.00pm, it took about 2 hours from the ferry exit in East Java to this rest stop.