After an amazing few days in the ultra-modern Singapore Alec and I headed to Bali for a tropical beach getaway 😎

An island of paradise, Bali is a world-renowned vacation spot. TripAdvisor even named it the world’s top travel destination in 2017!

We visited Bali during its rainy season and ultimately decided to spend only 1 full day there. This amazing place certainly deserves a much longer visit; nevertheless we were lucky to explore two of Bali’s most famous temples. We hope to return someday for a longer and drier stay, though!

Bali Overview

Bali is an island province of Indonesia, located about halfway between Malaysia and Australia. Its population is ~4M people, over 80% of whom are Hindus. While a popular vacation destination for visitors from all over the world, its proximity to Australia (4-6hr flight) makes it particularly favored by Aussies. All in all, tourism drives 80% of Bali’s economy.

Bali was historically strongly influenced by Indian and Chinese culture, particularly Hinduism; by the 1500s Bali was an independent collection of Hindu kingdoms.

In the 1800s the Dutch began to hold increasing economic and political control, pitting rival kingdoms against each other. The Dutch and the Balinese didn’t quite get along either. Their main disputes revolved around plundering ships that sank off the coast, which traditionally the Balinese kings considered as their property. On one occasion they plundered a Chinese schooner that struck a reef, refusing Dutch demands for compensation. Such incidents angered the Dutch who in 1906 staged a military intervention, leading to their full control of the island.

Bali became a state of Indonesia in 1946, and in 1949 the Dutch recognized Indonesian independence.

Arrival

Alec and I landed at Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport around 9pm and were immediately greeted by the humid air and overly aggressive taxi drivers. As we walked out of the airport we were overwhelmed by dozens of incessant “excuse me”s.

Seeing us on our phones one taxi driver said that Uber was blocked, which of course was a blatant lie. Nevertheless there was some unintentional truth to it – we ordered a car but the driver told us to cancel, likely trying to make money from the cancellation fee.

We finally installed Grab, the Asian ride-sharing app, and got a hassle-free ride to our hotel in Kuta for about $5.

We decided to ball out a little and order room service, but not before a bit of a scare. It turned out that our bathroom was separated from the room by a clear glass wall, providing for a nice view. After some nervous scrambling Alec finally found a curtain and we avoided an awkward crisis. What a relief!

We noticed a lot of Russians in our hotel (and in Bali in general), though this would be only a small foreshadowing to how many Russians we would see in Thailand. More on that in future posts.

Ulun Danu

The next day was our only full day in Bali so we went all out: we hired a driver to take us to some temples. Balin’ out all day with the driver cost a very reasonable $70.

Our first stop was Ulun Danu, the iconic lake temple in the northern mountainous part of the island. The star of seemingly every Bali postcard and one of the most photographed sites here, this was a must-see for us.

The temple was about 40 miles north of Kuta but the drive took ~2 hours as there was heavy traffic leaving the city. The majority of vehicles on the streets were mopeds, which is the main mode of transportation for most locals. Not everyone wore helmets and we saw a guy check his phone while driving a moped. Talk about texting and driving…

Another noticeable thing was the large amount of stray animals roaming the streets: mostly stray dogs and a few stray chickens.

When we finally arrived at the temple we were in awe of the scenic temple grounds.

Ulun Danu was built in 1633 and is a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Shiva (“the deity of deities”). The temple has several shrines dedicated to other Hindu gods as well.

While taking photos we saw our driver, who we initially thought was just waiting for us in the parking lot, doing the same. He brought a selfie stick and asked to record a video of us saying “Bali is a safe place to visit.” I asked who he was going to show and he said it was just for himself. We later saw him record himself saying something in Balinese into the camera. Really nice guy.

Puzzled by our driver’s request we later looked up recent news about Bali. It turned out that Mt. Agung, an active volcano on the island, erupted 5 times in November 2017 (just a few months before our visit), causing the evacuation of 100k+ people. There were subsequent eruptions as well, including January (a month earlier) and later in 2018 and 2019.

We were certainly lucky to miss the volcanic activity, but during our visit everything felt very normal and safe. Probably for the best that we didn’t know about the eruptions beforehand.

Tanah Lot

After Ulun Danu our next stop was Tanah Lot, the #1 Bali attraction on Google. Tanah Lot is a temple built on an offshore rock 13 miles up the coast from Kuta; the name literally means “Land in the Sea.”

It was late afternoon and the temple was crowded with a Lot of tourists; it wasn’t as scenic as Ulun Danu but perhaps just easier to get to. It was high tide so the temple was separated from the shore by a shallow river, which I waded across in my flip flops. Alec, unprepared for such dangerous escapades in his jeans and tennis shoes, stayed behind.

Once I crossed the monks offered me holy water, and for a small donation I washed my hands and they put rice on my forehead and blessed me. Tourists were not allowed to go up to the actual shrine so I just stood around and eventually waded back.

It was starting to rain so we hurried back to our driver who was waiting in the parking Lot. We went back to our hotel; by this time the rain was done so we took a walk around Kuta.

The whole area was extremely touristy. Overall Kuta seemed to be more of a party destination than a peaceful getaway. A few locals tried to offer us drugs for sale – no thanks! Lots of clubs and bars and rowdy tourists around; even the beaches were super crowded, and unfortunately filled with trash.

While Kuta was a convenient jumping-off point for various adventure activities and day trips, I would recommend instead staying on the Southern or even the Eastern parts of the island, with less tourists and cleaner, calmer beaches.

Departure

The next day I woke up at 7am to hit the beach before our flight. There weren’t too many tourists but still a good amount of people – locals who worked on the beach and were cleaning up the previous day’s mess. Without the crowds of yesterday the trash was now more obvious and disheartening.

I went for a swim and the water was amazingly warm; the waves were huge so I had a lot of fun jumping around. Sadly, there was lots of trash in the water too so after a few minutes I couldn’t take it anymore and went back to the hotel.

When Alec and I got to the airport a couple of guys amusingly tried to get us to pay for taxi rides. They didn’t give up when we told them we were leaving Bali. Eventually we went inside but not before long the taxi saga continued – Alec got propositioned for a taxi in the bathroom! When he said he was flying out the guy didn’t believe him and asked where he was going. Another guy asked what time his flight was. Ridiculous 😂

We went to an airport lounge to eat; I didn’t mention to the ever-responsible Alec that our boarding pass said that the gate closed 30 min before departure. When it was 32 mins before departure I finally told him and we started sprinting. It was suspiciously empty and the guy working there gave us a weird look. When we asked if we were late he smiled and said that they write warnings on the boarding passes just so people get there on time. Not only had the flight not started boarding, the plane wasn’t even there!

And with that, our short but adventurous time on this lovely island was over. Next stop – Thailand!