Kimberley Trip, Day 4: Boarding the Orion

Sunday, May 26, 2024

We packed as scheduled, tagged our bags, and put them outside our room. After another (excellent) buffet-style breakfast, we boarded five buses for our day tour to Ubud. Part of the strategy here was to give Lindblad time to prepare the ship from its previous voyage, which ended just this morning.

Our first stop was for a cultural performance in Betabulong on the way to Ubud. The performance was a classic “good vs. evil” play in five acts involving a tiger, mythical creatures, and the like, and ran for about an hour. We realized that the attendees here included our cruise and those who had just come off the Orion from the previous cruise.

Our next stop was the Puseh Batuan Temple, which we had visited on Friday. There wasn’t anything new to see, but we walked around and pointed out a few things to friends.

We then drove to Ubud, a crowded city with narrow streets, many cars, and many more motorcycles. We had a buffet lunch at Cafe Wayan, a large, primarily open-air buffet restaurant. After lunch, we had a little while to shop.

Kenna recently discovered that her cell phone case was falling apart and hoped to find a new one before getting on the ship. I searched mobile phone stores online and found several, but unfortunately, the Apple-specific stores are closed on Sundays. Undaunted, we set out toward some other listed mobile phone stores. Getting around Ubud on foot proved to be quite a challenge. The sidewalks were blocked, broken, or not passable in many places. We felt like we were risking our lives anytime we stopped off the curb because, unexpectedly, a motorcycle could be zooming up the edge of the roadway. The first couple of stores we tried did not have a case that fit Kenna’s phone. But while searching for one of the stores seen on the internet search, we found a store that wasn’t listed that had the correct case. The price? About $2.25 US.

We rushed back to where the bus would pick us up, intercepting a couple of people going the wrong way looking for the bus stop. We got there in plenty of time to stand in the rain while waiting for the bus. The bus took us to the cruise passenger terminal in Benoa, the port just north of our hotel. We passed through some security and passport checks and then arrived at our ship, the National Geographic Orion, where there was a welcoming and blessing ceremony before we boarded.

Our cabin on the Orion is, as expected, gorgeous. But we weren’t finished with formalities yet, as we had to receive the required safety training and other orientation. This was followed by a buffet dinner, after which we retired following a long and exciting day.

This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.