Light from lava inside the crater is reflected off volcanic ash from Mount Agung, as seen from Jemeluk Beach, Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia. - Reuters
PETALING JAYA: Malaysians are among the thousands stranded at Indonesian resort island of Bali after the eruption of Mount Agung.
Smoke and ash caused Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport to be closed since Sunday night, grounding hundreds of flights.
Chris Mok told The Star that her scheduled flight back to Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday was among the flights that were cancelled.
"I have been here for 10 days already, and my cash is running low. Now I'm scheduled to fly back on December 1, hopefully with the same airline, as others are fully booked," she said.
Mok said that she extended her stay at the resort she was staying in.
"They (the resort) provided a special rate for tourists who are stranded here for the moment," said Mok.
Another Malaysian traveler En Wei told The Star that he was supposed to leave Bali on Sunday, but after two days of flight cancellations he decided to find alternative routes to leave the island.
"After my flight was cancelled twice, we found alternative routes to leave the island before it got worse," said En Wei.
He said that he took a four hour car ride to the port of Gilimanuk then took a half an hour ferry to Banyuwangi, and another hour-long car ride to Banyuwangi Airport.
"We had booked one of the very limited flights from this small town to Jakarta. With a lot of delays, we finally arrived in Jakarta to take another flight back to Kuala Lumpur," he said.
En Wei said he finally arrived back in Kuala Lumpur at 4.30am on Wednesday.
"We did not have travel insurance, so we had to pay for this journey back to Kuala Lumpur ourselves," he said.
En Wei said the total travel cost back to Kuala Lumpur cost him and his group of four over RM3,000.
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