After four days at sea sailing along the west coast of Australia, we arrived in Bali, Indonesia at 7am, due to depart again for Phuket at 5pm the very same day.
As I’ve mentioned before, Bali was never really on our bucket list. (Russ doesn’t actually have a travel bucket list.)
From what friends and family tell us, Bali is all about beachside resorts, cocktails and cheap massages. Unfortunately, with only a few hours ashore from a cruise ship, we weren’t going to experience that side of Bali. The ship cocktails and facilities are pretty good though.
We’d been advised the safest option was to book one of the ship’s shore excursions — mainly because if you’re late back, the ship waits for the official tours.
Which, as it turns out… was important information.
The Bali Surprise
As many of you know, Russell agreed to this around-the-world adventure under a few very specific travel conditions:
✈️ No flying
🚌 No bus trips longer than 4 hours
🚽 No squatting toilets
🐒 No monkeys climbing all over him
🏟️ And absolutely no huge stadium crowds
… although I do suspect that last rule may mysteriously be waived later in the trip for a certain birthday concert in Las Vegas.
So naturally, I surprised him with an elephant safari.
Thankfully, I’d confirmed there were no monkeys involved.
The excursion included a two-hour bus trip each way to the Mason Elephant Park & Lodge near Taro, outside Ubud, plus lunch and an elephant ride through the park. The ship’s four excursion buses travelled in a police-escorted convoy through Bali traffic — weaving past scooters, roadside stalls and what felt like complete organised chaos on the roads.
Russell immediately claimed the front seat on the bus — so he had a ‘drivers view’.
The drive itself was fascinating. Traffic in Bali looked like complete chaos to us: families on motorbikes weaving through tiny gaps, scooters darting in every direction, horns constantly beeping, and powerlines hanging overhead in what looked like an impossible tangled web.
At one point Russell asked our guide what had happened to his arm. He casually explained he’d come off his motorbike the day before.
Honestly, after seeing the roads, we were amazed there weren’t more accidents.
Once we left the busy streets behind, the countryside became incredibly lush and beautiful.
The Elephant Ride
I’ll admit, I wasn’t entirely sure how Russell was going to react to the bus trip or the elephant ride planned for him.
Two hours of Bali traffic, plenty of near misses witnessed and to my surprise … Russ was loving it. We eventually found ourselves surrounded by tropical gardens, ponds and enormous elephants wandering quietly through the grounds.
And there, waiting for us, was Patsy.
She was rather big as expected and has been here for about 8 years with the same handler.
Standing beside Patsy made us realise just how enormous these animals really are.
To climb aboard, we walked up a raised platform built level with the seat on the elephant’s back. Even then, stepping across onto her felt slightly intimidating once you realised just how far off the ground you suddenly were, and I’m not good with heights.
The moment Patsy started walking there was this slow rolling sway from side to side that took a few minutes to get used to.
We both enjoyed it immediately. The ride wound through tropical greenery, while Patsy calmly ignored us entirely and her handler giving us a guided tour.
I still had mixed feelings beforehand about riding elephants, but seeing how relaxed and well cared for they appeared — and learning about the sanctuary’s breeding program for endangered Sumatran elephants — made the experience feel very different from what I had imagined.
Afterwards we got to feed one of the baby elephants, which may have been my favourite part of the entire day.
There’s something slightly surreal about standing face-to-face with an elephant’s trunk while it gently searches your pockets for more food.
Back to the Ship…
You’d think the drive back would be uneventful.
Without the police escort we’d had earlier, Bali traffic had other ideas.
The trip back to the port stretched out to nearly three and a half hours and eventually we started getting calls from ship staff asking where we were.
Then the captain called (several times).
Yes… our excursion bus was officially holding up the departure of the Coral Princess.
Thankfully we made it back in one piece.
And technically… still within Russell’s four-hour bus-trip rule.
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