BALI – WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE HOLIDAY

Today we have a special guest blog from a young reader with a great sense of humour. Jaxon is sharing his story of his wheelchair accessible holiday in Bali. I’m often asked about Bali and it’s wonderful to be able to share this insightful review from one of our families.

Hi, my name is Jaxon and I’m 11 years old and have Muscular Dystrophy, and rely on my electric wheelchair to get me from A to B.

I thought I would share with you my recent experience travelling from Sydney, Australia, to Bali, Indonesia.

We flew with Garuda Airlines, it’s around a 6 hour flight to Bali from Sydney. I transfer into a manual wheelchair provided by the airport and my electric wheelchair goes into Baggage along with our luggage. We took a beach chair over for me to use too which will go to a Bali company (Villa G at Ellora) for others to use in the future, so that went along to baggage as well.

My Mum and Dad transferred me from the manual wheelchair into aisle plane wheelchair to then transfer me into the plane seat. The Staff were willing to help, but I prefer my Mum and Dad to do it.

I did well on the plane, lots of movies, but definitely no sleeping. We arrived in Bali, and to my shock the Transport Guy my Mum had been given by a friend, didn’t have a wheelchair Van after all, and wanted to put my 180kg Wheelchair on his van roof with an Ocky strap. Needless to stay thankfully this didn’t happen and 5 Balinese men lifted my chair into a Milk Truck, and we knew from this moment “let’s use  “Bali Access Travel” again”, that have a converted wheelchair van for the rest of the trip.

We arrived at our resort “Legian Beach Resort”, I had been here 4 years ago for my Cousins Wedding, but I forgot how beautiful it was. The whole resort has ramps and I loved buzzing about and checking it all out. We had a disabled room for the whole family, it wasn’t huge but enough for me to get around and the bathroom was perfect. We could get a shower/toilet commode from Bali Access Travel too, which helps.

We were only having just over a week in Bali with our extended family to celebrate my Mum’s and her twins 40th, so I couldn’t wait to see the rest of our family, and try out the beach chair on the beach (Legian Beach) directly in front of our resort.

We waited till the next day, as we were quite tired from travelling, and being in the beach chair with all my family around the next day was amazing, and there was a beautiful sunset too, which was even better. The ladies at “Bayu’s Bar” that we met 4 years ago still remembered me, and after my dip in the beach, I had a Bali foot massage for $5 Australian off one of the older ladies on the beach, I was feeling very relaxed and ready for my holiday.

Our week was a whirlwind of great times, from swimming in the resort pool, to hanging at the Beach Bar, to listening to people sing at Restaurants, to experiencing a Balinese Traditional night of Food, fire and dancing, to shopping, and best of all having Breakfast with the Orangutan’s, it was truly one of the best holidays I’ve had. We even went to meet the people we were dropping the Beach wheelchair off too at Sanur and they had the best Disabled only Resort (Villa G at Ellora), that I hope we stay at next time now we know where it is.

They have a pool hoist, hoists, commodes and you can even get a carer if Mum and Dad want to go out. It would be our very own private place if we hired all three rooms. The Owners were so lovely and helpful, I hope we go back there again, Sanur was beautiful the water was very blue, and from what I saw it looked a little easier to get around the streets with my wheelchair too.

Before, I go I have to tell you a story about my experience at Bali Zoo, which by the way was accessible but the ramps at the entry were a little hairy but doable, so let’s go:-

People are having photos with the orangutans one by one, when our number gets called up for the photographs. The photographer set us up in certain positions and got the Orangutan on my wheelchair! May I say that he loved my chair. Climbing all around my chair made the star of the show. Firstly, the orangutan started kissing the headrest of my wheelchair. Then, it started to PEE on my wheelchair. You heard that right, PEE. And that’s why I now call orangutans “urinatatans”.

Hope you enjoyed my little story, if you are like me and want to know if you can travel to places only in your Electric Chair, and not a manual chair it is doable. I struggle being in a manual chair cause I like having control of where I go, and I like just buzzing about in general. The streets of Legian where we were at, wasn’t always perfectly accessible but the motorists and shop keepers on the road are always helpful to help you get to your destination, and we always worked it out in the end, with no drama.

Here is a little list of what we have done that was great for me to do in my Electric Chair.

·       Bali Safari

·       Bali Zoo

·       Beach Strip from Legian to Seminyak

·       The Our Bar

·       Uncle Norm’s Bar

·       The Y Bar

·       Water Bomb Park

We have these supposed accessible attraction’s to do on our next Visit (hopefully soon):-

·       Elephant Safari Park

·       Monkey Forest

·       Butterfly Park

·       Lake Batur & Kintamani volcano

·       Ubud, rice fields, museums, and historical beauty

 

By

Jaxon Taylor

Thanks Jaxon, it was great to have you as a guest blogger. I hope you’ll share your future travels with us.

If anyone else has Bali tips, we’d love to hear them.