In the summer of 1984, a Japanese backpacker wandered down to the end of Padangbai’s beach and saw a blonde European building a house. He asked if he could sleep on the floor in exchange for work. Within hours, he was hoisting coconut wood beams and helping hand saw and shave timber. Thus began an hostelry and a friendship. With the help of 15 workers, Dutchman Anton Audretsch completed the three-storey house for his family in 8 months. For the first three months he used only bamboo pins and hand tools because there was no electricity.
Anton started putting up travelers in earnest later that year, charging a dollar a night. Built completely of bamboo and coconut wood, he named his humble accommodations the Topi Inn after its peculiar top hat-shaped traditional grass roof. Since its unofficial opening over 26 years ago, the hotel has grown into one of the most popular rest stops in all of east Bali. Many of the former laborers, most recruited from just one local family, eventually became staff. Yuri, the first Japanese guest who ended up staying for two weeks, returned for a memorable reunion in 2008.
Hot Bus to The East Coast
I had been hearing about the hotel from other travelers for years, so finally one early Friday morning I hopped aboard an old rattletrap bus in Batubulan for the two hour drive to Bali’s southeast coast, sitting between a 28-year-old musician from Frankfurt, an out of work Balinese chauffeur whose car had been rear-ended, and a turbaned Balinese woman carrying a bamboo tray of melons and kangkung. Three other passengers were dozing in the back in the steamy noonday heat. We drove by teeming bus-lined Sukawati market, the rich valleys, hills and terraced ricefields of Gianyar district, shook down the center of Klungkung, the humid seaside town of Kusamba, then the traffic started to thin along the black-sand coastline beyond the bat cave of Goa Lawah. From the turnoff to Padangbai, 50 km before Amlapura, I caught a motorcycle taxi straight to the Topi Inn. The whole trip took just two hours. Buses will take you just about everywhere on Bali.
Its entrance partially hidden by trees, this traveler’s landmark is a big rambling structure with an open-air restaurant on the ground floor, a 12-bed dorm and five private rooms on the second floor, and the owner’s trembling quarters perched on top. The whole building creaks and sways like a living thing. Travelers were relaxing among a row of lounge chairs along the railing on the 1st floor looking out over the beach, tangles of brightly painted sail-fish bowed jukung, and bobbing diving, fishing and dive boats moored in a perfect pearl shaped bay. Ferries were coming and going, loudspeakers and bells blaring, from the big jostling ferry terminal beyond.
While unpacking, the sounds and smells of Topi Inn’s kitchen under my feet, I could overhear through the thin walls of my room traveler’s tales from Nusatenggara, the storied southeastern islands of the archipelago – the wilderness beaches of the Gilis, how the Sasaks had pick pocketed an Australian’s wallet, the monotonous egg and noodle dishes aboard 7-day island-hopping boats to Komodo and of the legendary colored craters of Keli Mutu.
A Traveler Settles Down
Anton d’Audretsch was born in 1951 in Suriname, formerly Dutch Guyana known for its bauxite and piranha-filled rivers. His mother was born in Semarang and her stories gave him a love of the tropics. His father was a geologist who took him all around the world. The family lived in West New Guinea for three years. Anton immigrated to Australia when he was 18 and made his first trip to Indonesia at 21. In the 1970s, he traveled for seven years around the islands as well as Thailand and India. His blonde hair now graying but his lanky musculature still betraying his former trade as a carpenter, Anton still calls himself a backpacker and his hotel is designed and marketed mainly to backpackers. But that designation doesn’t mean what it used to. “Travelers of 20 or 30 years ago were frugal in every way they traveled,” Anton explained. “Now their priorities have changed. They have more money and are apt to splurge on expensive dive tours, car rentals and nice meals.”
The latter indulgence can be more than fulfilled in the Topi Inn’s busy restaurant, opened in 1989, which turns out such Western and Asian dishes as a seafood basket, a classic nasi campur, a prized beef rendang, and the best Cimbali-brewed cappuccino in town. The restaurant’s painstakingly evolved menu, which draws clientele from both Padangbai and far out of town, is so well-guarded that Anton wouldn’t even let me copy it.
A Small Port’s Daily Rhythms
I took a walk down the Padangbai’s one and only charmingly scruffy main street past the confetti facades of souvenir stalls. The port was scrappier, noisier and more crowded than I first remembered it in the 1980s, yet everything worth seeing is still within walking distance. After their Friday prayers, hundreds of Muslim Indonesian day tourists, the women and girls fully clothed in Islamic attire, were picnicking on the sand. Gleaming family cars – arch symbols of the burgeoning Indonesian middle class – and a 200-meter-long line of motorcycles were parked all along the sidewalk.
Later that afternoon 12 Belgians took over the Topi’s whole dorm section, a long row of mattresses festooned with mosquito nets. That evening the staff set up a big screen and we watched Waking of Ned Devine about a dead man winning the lottery on the Isle of Man. After breakfast the next morning the Belgians were off to the Gilis. Mid-morning the whole building rang with the dancing, tinkling sound of the rindik. Seeking shelter from the heat, I hung out with the fishermen, drivers, touts, sunglasses, lottery, ticket and fruit sellers in the big cool white ceramic bale off the parking lot where there was always a cool breeze from the sea. I bought a toy jukung, the big craft item here, though the sellers buy them from the Sukawati art market.
The next day, Saturday, Anton took the whole hard-working staff to the Safari Park and closed the premises. One staff member remained behind to turn away disappointed guests. For the first time in weeks, I was able to read the entire Jakarta Post, delivered to the restaurant downstairs at 11 am. From the aloof and breezy solitude of the upstairs, crowds of Balinese in white ceremonial dress carrying high offerings were streaming to and from the sacred Pasek temple further up the hill.
A major dive destination, the first dive outfit to set up shop in Padangbai was Geko in the late 1990s. Now 12 dive companies based all over Bali bring their clients here. Because diving is year round with no off-season, the business has become a boon to Padangbai and its residents. The surrounding waters of Amuk Bay, with the villages of Padangbai to the south and Candidasa to the north, offer outstanding dive locales just minutes away, particularly for rare species you won’t see anywhere else on the island.
One of these is the giant mola-mola sunfish, a marine wonder with a circumference of 2.5 meters. Although they are also found in California and Flores, mola-mola are more easily accessed in the waters off the islands of Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Penida. Dive boats also visit Tepekong (sharks!), Blue Lagoon (gentle white sand slope for beginners), Biaha (many big pelagics), Manta Point (4-meter-wide manta rays). The little port is also the main jumping off point for diving in Amed on Bali’s north east coast and Tulemben on the north coast. Along the main street are a half dozen dive shops crammed with tanks and dive equipment. Padangbai’s sheltered bay offers a safe harbor for dive boats hired by the 40 or so dive companies operating in Bali. Dive boats with twin and triple outboards line the waterfront, their long ropes stretching to shore.
Gateway to the Eastern Islands
Though this small town is no longer a sleepy little port, Padangbai still has the feel of a small harbor town and fishing center and not of a big port like Gilimanuk on the western tip of the island. Offering three beaches, inexpensive restaurants and hotels in all price categories, the port is an under-appreciated destination with its own atmosphere – a unique place to spend time both before and after dive excursions. At any one time perhaps as many as 400 people are spending the night here, about half of whom are either leaving for or arriving from the neighboring island of Lombok.
In the high season about 1000 people arrive at the port from the tourist centers of southern Bali every day, embarking on either one of the 18 ferries making 32 crossings around the clock to Lembar Harbor on Lombok or boarding one of the fast boats for the idyllic Gili Islands off Lombok’s west coast. The vast majority fall between the ages of 18 and 34. All through the night the strong headlights of approaching ferries cut through the darkness, their engines churning in reverse, while departure and arrival announcements emanate from the brightly-lit jetty followed by the deep haunting sounds of the ship’s horns.
The Topi Inn’s 20-year collection of guest books are a fruitful source of recommendations, warnings, odes and rants to travel, as well as hallucinogenic drawings. From what I could gather, Padangbai makes a strategic base from which to see the whole area. Ubud is only 45 minutes away. Jukung outriggers, leaving at 7 am and returning at 2 pm, can be shared (Rp300,000, one hour) among 3-4 passengers for day trips to Nusa Lembongan which is 8 km closer than Sanur. Motorbike tours set out to the aboriginal village Sideman between Klungkung and Besakih, renown for its exquisite songket weaving.
Some guests never make it the eastern islands or even out of town, preferring to sleep, dive, read and eat implausibly cheap fresh marlin, barracuda, snapper, cumi cumi and roasted prawns to their hearts content in Padangbai while very unhurriedly trying to figure out what to do next. Anton’s most strenuous activity of the day is to swim across the harbor to the reef at the entrance of the bay. When I asked him how often he makes it into Denpasar, he said, “As little as possible.”
Practicalities
Topi Inn, Jl. Sulayukti 99, Padangbai 80873, tel. 0363-41424, email: topinn@hotmail.com, website: www.topiinn.nl. Bookings are only done by email. Dorm beds Rp50,000; also five fan rooms (walk-in price Rp100,000) two with their own cold water mandi. 12 dorm beds. One shared bathroom upstairs, two showers downstairs. Wi-fi (Rp200 per minute). Motorbike, car and boat rentals for individuals or groups; tickets to the Gilis on speedboats (1.5 hours), fast boats (4.5 hours), and ferry and bus (8 hours).Tours, fishing, snorkeling, equipment and diving excursions can all be arranged. 15% discount for KITAS holders but only for food. Hatten’s Alexandria and Rose (Rp140,000) are the best selling wines.
Family oriented: Puri Rai Hotel (www.puriraihotel.com), Jl. Silayukti 7X, Padangbai. Wide range of large, clean tiled rooms and garden villas from $39 to $67 inclusive hot water, a/c, breakfast plus all taxes and service charges. Get a room in the back. Children under 10 free. Extra bed $12. Three pools. Tel. reservations: 0361-8528521. Inquiries: reservation@baligotours.com.
Budget warung: Padangbai Café, run by Ibu Kadek Dana, near the ferry terminal entrance. Great rice and noodle dishes.
Massage: Wayan at the Blue Lagoon gives excellent 30- minute treatments for Rp30,000.
Swimming pool: Take a nice cool dip for only Rp10,000 per person in the minimalist black granite pool, just 150 meters from the Topi Inn towards the village.
Recommended dive outfits: Bali’s only British-owned and managed dive shop, Aquamarine (www.aquamarinediving.com), Jl. Petitenget 2A, Kuta, tel: 0361 738 020, email: info@AquaMarineDiving.com. Outside office hours: hp 0818352285/0812365882. Also Q-Dive (www.q-divebali.com), Padangbai, tel. 0363 41387, fax. 0363 41386.
