Mount Agung erupted while we were out getting $10 hour-long foot massages and having dinner at this brilliant Italian restaurant called Massimo’s (named after the owner, a famous Italian chef expat who moved to Bali in the 80s). Everything in the restaurant from the cheese to the pasta to the gelato was made in-house, right in front of you, and the olive oil was imported straight from Chef Massimo’s home in Italy and probably could have been sipped straight out of the bottle. The walls were decorated with magazine covers featuring Chef Massimo and pictures of him with famous people from all over the world. He was present in the resturaunt, smiling, laughing, taking photos of happy couples, checking on tables, complimenting his staff for jobs well done. All in all, it was a superb dining experience. So, we had no reason to check the news until a few hours later once we back at the hotel.
That’s when we discovered that the volcano had erupted around 5:00 p.m. We knew there was a risk of eruption when we came to Bali, however the threat level had been moved from highest to second highest right before we left and we felt like things were calming down. Obviously, we were wrong.
The last time Mount Agung erupted in 1963, over 1600 people lost their lives. As of right now, the volcano has only erupted smoke and ash and so far we have been extremely lucky that the winds are blowing away from the airport. While concerns about earthquakes or tsunamis are minimal – the concern of smoke and ash shutting down the Bali airport is extremely real. When the volcano in Iceland erupted a few years ago, airport operations were shut down for days.
Getting stuck here was/is our main worry and what led us to make the decision to leave our resort in Sanur Beach a night early around 10:00 p.m. last night. If evacuations were to occur, we did not want to be bottlenecked in the terrible traffic in this beach area and miss our chance to get on a flight out of here should the need arise.
Before we made the final decision, I walked down the lobby to talk with the staff about how legitimate our concerns were. I sincerely appreciate their honesty (because I had expected them to brush it off as nothing) but I was not put at ease at all, to say the least. So we packed up super quick and took a taxi to the airport (we were scammed again at the toll bridges – but we didn’t even care this time). Our hope was to have our 1 a.m. Denpasar, Indonesia to Tokyo, Japan flight moved up a day early – but the airline was unable to accommodate that.
So, we booked a room for the night in the hotel connected to the airport and basically checked the news all night instead of sleeping. We were supposed to go on a private temple tour today but as some of the temples were up near the volcano – we went ahead and cancelled in order to play it safe and stay near the airport in case the situation changed.
We’ve been lucky so far and the airport is functioning as normal with no the delays or cancellations due to the volcano. Our flight takes off in about 4 hours – so we are hopeful that everything will remain stable for the next few hours (at least).
Bali is by far the poorest and least developed place we’ve travelled (and from what it seems, Bali is the richest area in Indonesia). There was certainly visable poverty in other locations we’ve visited like South Africa and Naples, Italy and most recently Bangkok, Thailand – but this was mostly poor areas dispersed between thriving areas. Here, the second you walk out of the resort, the overwhelming poverty of the area is undeniable. Broken sidewalks and dilapidated buildings – from previous natural disasters, I’m sure, are everywhere. And I can’t imagine how another significant disaster might impact the people here who have so very little already.
Married To Travel 