The Good, The Bad and Bali
Bali is what spurred Tay and I’s 2013 Asia adventure. I was laying on a beach in Oahu on Labor Day weekend in 2012 when one of us called the other… I don’t really remember, nor is relevant. Tay was asking me how Hawaii was and I said let’s do a surfing trip to Bali. That’s how it all started.
Tay and I are both snowboarders, she even moved to New Zealand to become an instructor and then made Colorado home by that point in time. I’d surfed a couple times in Hawaii.
So fast forward a few months and about 3 weeks into a trip that had already taken us to the temples of Angkor in Cambodia and the jungles of Borneo and we were landed at the airport in Denpasar.
So I’ll save you the typical Bali-bashing and the lame Eat-Pray-Love midlife crisis tale and just tell you what I thought, that dead horse has been thoroughly been beaten. I didn’t fall head over heels in love with Bali, but I didn’t hate it either. I’m so in the middle with it and I want to go back, and I feel like the 12 days spent there were not enough. So here it is: The good, the bad and Bali.
Denpasar
Not much to say about Denpasar, we arrived at the airport in the evening grabbed a taxi and went straight to our hotel in Denpasar. The next day we woke up ate breakfast and headed off to Ubud. What I do remember about Denpasar was that it was a giant clusterfuck of buildings… nothing stood out too much there, but I also didn’t really hang out there either. The highlight: My first run in with Nasi Goreng, which both Tay and I still reminisce about to this day. I know it’s just fried rice, but it’s the absolute best fried rice.
Where did we stay? Pop Hotel: Denpasar
Overall a good cheap place to stay, one night set us back a total of 268,000 IDR, I know that sounds like you’d have to take out a personal loan for, but it equates to just less than 20 whole American dollars for a night for 2 people, and that included that nasi goreng wrapped in a banana leaf breakfast. It was basic, yet futuristic and had a fun feel to it.
Arrival tip: The ATM once inside the airport but before you go through immigration, the only ATM, only accepts Mastercards, we both only had Visa debit cards. However, I did have a Mastercard credit card on me, and you can pay by credit card at the immigration window for your Visa on arrival.
Ubud
I didn’t want to like Ubud, I had all out refused to read that Eat-Pray-Love book and be the stereotype. But I came to Ubud for Tay. Tay was dying to come up here and check it out and do some yoga. Ok, fine. I’ll go.
Once we got out of the poorly planned labyrinth of buildings and govt oversight and started to climb up into the hills of rice paddies I started to warm up to the idea of heading to the middle aged, newly single, coming for a life changing experience to write whats already been done and made into a feature film woman’s retreat.
We made it to our hotel for a next few nights, Villa Sonja. Ok, maybe Ubud isn;t so bad after all.
Where we stayed: Villa Sonja
I loved every sqaure inch of this place. It’s located just outside Ubud in Nyuh Kuning Village, yet is a short walk or bike ride from town. The staff wait on you hand and foot and treat you as if you were part of their family. This was a bit higher of a price tag: We paid $68/950,000 IDR per night. Yeah, I know, all the miserable backpackers that are willing to bicker down to the last rupiah for a sleep would turn their nose at this.. but we didn’t. Did I ever mention that I’m not totally a thru-and-thru backpacker? We’d backpacked, camped and hosteled our way to this point in the trip. Paying $68 (well $34 each when you divie it up) is well worth the luxury we had in return staying in Villa Sonja’s suite room.
This included an amazing breakfast of mie goreng and nasi goreng, a fruit plate, yogurt, tea, coffee, milk, fruit juice and toast that was brought to you where you wanted it, whether that be in bed or on your private balcony (they also phone you when they see you arrive back to your room in the evening and ask what time you’d like it to be ready). Throughout the day you’d come back to your room always tidied up with fresh exotic fruits prepared for you to eat.
Yoga at the Yoga Barn
Tay did the research on this one. I had only done yoga a few times and Tay is very much into it. I did enjoy the classes here. Tay chose some Vinyasa flow classes and we even did a morning flow class one day. I liked it and the facility there is beautiful. I think each class if I recall right came out to about $10 each.
I think the classes were worth it and I would totally do them again, and they kicked my ass.
The thing I found odd with all the yoga experiences was the fact that it’s yoga for white people taught by white people. The classes and instructors you see all over are from Australia, the US, UK, Germany…. never did see a Balinese instructor. Does anyone know whats up with that?
Monkey Forest
I think it costs all of $2 to get into the monkey forest. We didn’t ever go in though. We rode our bikes past a few times each day and got to see plenty of monkeys… they like to hang out outside the forest sanctuary’s walls.
Food
We found good food all over Ubud, I’m not gonna go in depth here. Just wander around and you’ll be bound to find good food, live a little.
Shopping
I’m not a big shopper, but there were some neat shops to check out here. Of course you can get the typical mass produced souvenirs, and the usual artwork you can pick up in any corner of Southeast Asia… but there’s also some good things here too. It’s a very artsy town. I did bring back a couple of lamps we bought from a local shop owner and a couple dresses from the store Suen Noaj. But like with the food, just wander around.
So I think I’ve blathered on about Ubud long enough, yes, I liked it more than I thought. It still has it’s downsides. Those being that: it’s crowded, there’s lots of traffic (small town, lots of people coming and going), it’s full of people trying to do as Elizabeth Gilbert did (nothing wrong with visiting, but don’t come here to write a book and get inspired… it’s been done), many of the same lame mass copied artworks… but what we did there and where we stayed made up for it an exceeded my expectations for Ubud.
I feel like I should return though. We’re idiots and didn’t visit a rice terrace! What the hell were we thinking?!?!? We drove past plenty on the way there, why did we not do a tour? I’m a dumbass, that’s why. So Ubud, I think I’ll be back.
And as far as getting around, I recommend renting bicycles from your hostel, guesthouse or whatever you decide to sleep in, or if they don’t offer it rent one in town. We rented ones in town from a lady who ran a little rental shop for about 30,000 IDR per day each (ballpark guess on the price). The roads have hazards of course so pay attention. There are people, vehicles, potholes… this isn’t an issue to me. but then again we grew up riding our bikes off trail and through the woods where I grew up. If that’s too much for you to handle then sandal up and go for a walk. Although be careful because the side walks can and do have missing planks where you will drop straight down into the local sewage line.
Kuta
I’ll save you all the pissing and moaning and just leave it at this:
Kuta sucks.
It’s not pretty, we thought Denpasar was a poorly planned and laid out area until we arrived here. If you aren’t there for surfing, just avoid this area. We came for the surfing, and us not being expert surfers is what lead to us coming here. From what we had read up on about surfing in Bali was that unless you really know what you’re doing and have a decent amount of experience you probably shouldn’t surf elsewhere on the island. Me having been surfing all of a handful of times and Tay having never done it before didn’t qualify us as experienced obviously.
Sleeping
I’m not going to go much into accommodation in the Kuta-Seminyak area. The area runs the gamut in accommodation options, so choose what you want. We opted for a $20 a night hotel room a couple blocks back from Legion beach, no frills, just a place to conk out for the night.
Surfing
Ok, the surfing here (and this is coming from somone who isn’t an avid surfer) was pretty good. We had a blast surfing here. For our first day out I got us a private lesson with Rip Curl’s surf school up at Double-Six Beach. I wanted Tay to learn a few things and I wanted to learn a little about the waters in the particular area. The course set us back 1,900,000 IDR (does that make me sound baller, or what?) but it also included a morning session, an afternoon session and board rentals for the next couple days.
The only bad to the surfing was that I did wreck at one point and did happen to find one chunk of coral in the ocean there and slashed my foot open. I finished out surfing the rest of the morning not realizing I had a gaping hole in my foot. So after we hauled the boards across the beach and back to the shop they even cleaned out my lovely wound and bandaged it up for me. And yes, I did continue to surf the afternoon and the following days despite the cut. And no, I did not get some wild Balinese foot infection.
Sanur
The last of our days were spent over in quiet Sanur. We debated whether to go back to Ubud or check out new to us Sanur.
I thought the beaches were nicer in Sanur than in Kuta, and it was a much mellower scene in the evenings. We stayed at Kesuma Sari Hotel while in Sanur, which is set back right on the beach, which set us back about $30 per night.
Some other tips on Bali
It’s a lot bigger and lot more crowded than you probably think. Our idea of Bali was we’ll get all up in that island and see that whole thing in the 12 or so days we got there. Wrong. Things move slowly here, so if you plan on seeing a lot on the island, plan on being there a while.
If you plan to head out to Lombok, the Gili’s or other nearby islands splurge on the fast boat. We took the slow ferry heading to Lombok and it was a long process to get there from Kuta, and a strange process once we arrived, oh and it takes 4 hours! I mean, if you’re trying to pinch every penny and stay in Indonesia as long as humanly possible then go for it, but seeing that I wasn’t in Bali for months on end, it’s worth the extra cost for the speed boat. But that’s just me and I am fully aware the convenience will cost you.
You can pretty much apply all the other common sense travel tips while in Bali too.
So there it is, the good, the bad and Bali!
I forgot to add that Bali does have a fascinating culture, so there’s that too. Have you been to Bali? What did you think? Come visit me on Instagram to see some photos from my time in Bali… among all the other places.
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This entry was posted in Asia, Travel Advice
