Originally Posted by demue

@bhatnasx - Sorry a bit OT, but hopefully helpful.

Just a warning about transportation in Ubud area. There is a very strong "local lobby" that has made it close to impossible to get a Grab, Gojek or even Bluebird (this is an official and very good taxi company in Indonesia) in Ubud city and the surrounding area.

You may get lucky every once in a while with a Grab, but they often cancel on you when they see that you are in a "tricky" area. One example, we had to shift hotels and it was 9km distance i the Ubud area. Grab said 45k IDR, but no takers after 30mins. So the hotel got a local taxi guy who quoted 300k IDR. When I chuckled he dropped it to 250k IDR. I just told him that I didn't want to go to the airport (which costs about that much with a cab) and said no thank you. We got a free pick up from the other villa so problem solved.

I could have accepted 100k IDR given the situation, but this was a plain ripp off and very particular to the Ubud area. All the posters you see about "online taxi services being not allowed" are bogus. The police is officially supporting Grab, but Ubud is a stronghold that is resisting. You don't have such issues in Nusa Dua, Jimbaran, Sanur, Denpasar etc.