r/bali • u/ADYWOD24 • 3d ago

Trip Report Are Grab taxis to cheap?

I’ve been on holiday in Bali for the last 4 days & have used the Grab app to organise a couple of taxis.

However, the prices seem far too cheap?

For example a taxi from Canggu to Medewi came out to 400k IDR.

This is a 2 hour (+) drive & the driver can’t guarantee a job back to Canggu. He rang before the journey and said he would do the journey for 600k which seemed much fairer so i gladly accepted.

How are the drivers able to earn a living that allows them to support a family with these Grab prices? The costs in Bali close to the tourists areas must have risen significantly & running a car isn’t particularly cheap.

0 Upvotes

39% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/sitdowndisco 3d ago

400 for 2 hours is expensive compared to most places in Indonesia. Drivers do this work because they can earn a decent living compared to whatever alternative they have.

That’s why you see a lot of drivers from Java. The alternative might be working in the rice field for 100k per day in the beating sun manually till the fields…

0

u/KearnyMesa 3d ago

Mostly from East Java. If you ask your driver if he's from Banyuwangi (the easternmost spot in East Java), you get 50/50 chance.

P.S. Which is not good unfortunately, traffic there is a disaster, people don't seem to care about their and their passengers' lives. And these drivers from Java brought with em their driving habits...