[vibbs]

After our daughter's first birthday celebration in 2017, we decided that from next year onward we will always plan a foreign holiday on her birthday. The idea was to introduce a new country to her every year. The first country in this list was Sri Lanka and we traveled there in 2018. It was a good trip, unfortunately a travelogue never came up. To be frank I have been very lazy in writing my Travelogues (I realised I have an unfinished one in the assembly line from back in 2011 ).

However now with work from home in full swing which has freed up some time for personal indulgences and admittedly some reduced activity on the work front as a direct effect of Covid-19, I thought why not put up a couple of threads here, also re-living the memory of these trips.

Last year, we re-located to Singapore. This gave some more opportunities for a foreign holiday specially in South East Asia region. So we thought why not add our Anniversary as a motivation in addition to the daughter's birthday.

Our Anniversary falls in August and we zeroed in on Bali after looking at a few locations in SEA.

Unfortunately, I am missing a few photographs. My wife's Google pixel phone was our goto camera for this trip, and she in her zeal to free up some space after this and the next trip, transfered a lot of pics to an external hard drive which for some reason is not being detected by my laptop anymore. But I guess I still have enough for this thread. I will try to do less of writing and focus more on the Pics.



Disclaimer: I don't believe in Cramming my holidays with too many to-do things. I often just pick a couple of spots in a place and base my holidays around that. Pardon me if you feel I have missed out many places in Bali, because you are right, I have. I believe Holidays should be relaxing and if you are of the same opinion, Bali and the surrounding Islands have enough to take multiple holidays.

[vibbs]

Planning

I dont prefer to take tour packages. I think they make the trip hectic and you lose out on the ability to plan your holiday the way you want to. So even in this case, we set out on our own. I also dont believe in undertaking elaborate planning for the trips. I do some basic planning around the entry/exit dates, stay etc. and let the other finer things fall into place once I am in the location specially if I am visiting a place for the first time.

Bali is a province of Indonesia that includes the main Bali Island and surrounding small Islands.

Google Maps image below shows the main Bali Island and the two neighboring small ones.



The Main Bali Island is roughly 5700 Square Kilometers in Area and has a population of 4.2 Million. To put it in perspective, our own Goa has an area of 3700 Square Kilometers and as of 2011 Census, the population is 1.4 Million.

In itself, there is much to explore within Bali. Plus the Density of population is high which results in some long travel times within the Island. Our Initial plan was to split the stay in two parts. One part in the Main island and the second part in one of the smaller one - Nusa Penida. Infact I also proceeded to book hotel room in Nusa Penida. However on second thoughts, we decided to remove the idea of going to Nusa Penida and concentrate only on Bali Island- In the hindsight a good decision.

The duration of whole trip was 5 days and 4 nights. Our idea was to spend 2 days in the resort and 2 days doing some local sight seeing.

Skyscanner was used to scan cheap air tickets and Booking dot com was used to book Hotels.

Stay was booked at Bali Tropic Resort and Spa in Nusa Dua which is around 30 minutes Drive from Denpasar Airport. We had also requested the Hotel to arrange a pick up. We ended up using the same guy to take us on a one day trip to Ubud.

Indonesia has Visa free entry for Indians coming on Tourism purpose with a stay of less than 30 days. At the Immigration you need to show your confirmed tickets and if asked the hotel bookings. Visa exempt will be stamped on the passport.

[vibbs]

Day 1: Singapore - Bali and laze around in the resort. (29th August 2019)

We took the early morning 7AM scoot airlines flight. The duration to Denpasar from Singapore is 2 hours 45 minutes. Time zone in Bali is same as Singapore.

I exchanged 500 Singapore dollars at Airport. Indonesian Rupiah is a very cheap currency. I got more than 5 Million IDR for the 500 dollars I exchanged. They have currency Notes worth 1 Lakh Indonesian Rupiah

Lowest value note I came across was IDR 2000. So you will have to get used to dealing in pretty large value currency notes.

The beauty about Singapore Airport is that checking in, immigration etc is a breeze. You normally dont need to be at the airport more than 30 - 45 mins before the boarding time and will still have time to catch some quick bites or coffee at the airport or fool around at the indoor gardens.



Scoot gave us a pleasant surprise! The flight had rainbow Cabin Lights. Quite a beautiful sight I must say.



Flight was uneventful which in my terminology means comfortable.

We had booked our stay at Bali Tropics research and Spa through Booking dot com.

Information about the Resort can be found here

We had booked the deluxe room. The images on the website is largely a true representation of the room.

We were welcomed by this Ganesha at the Hotel.



Although Indonesia is a Muslim majority country, Bali is predominantly Hindu (close to 83% of the population is Hindu). The legends have a local touch though and this can be seen from their architecture as well.

It is also interesting to read about the Hindu community's struggle back in the days to get Hinduism recognized as a religion in Indonesia.

We still had some time to kill before the rooms were ready. So thought to just walk around the resort.







Fancy some Jackfruits?



The resort is attached to a beach but it was close to noon and the tide was getting low so swimming would have to wait. Low tide also deposits a lot of sea weeds to the beach which the resort staff then painstakingly remove daily.



Finally the room was ready. Ours was a deluxe room. This is how the rooms are arranged. Two on either side of the stairway (one up, one on the ground floor)



View from our room. Observe the small temple in the background.



The tide was already low, so swimming in the beach was not possible. We decided to spend the remainder of the day indulging in some Spa treatments at the resort.

The Balinese massage was very relaxing but a tad too expensive as per Bali standards, a fact that I came to know of later.

Into late evening we decided to go on a walk looking for a small place to have dinner from. Came across a couple of Indian restaurants. Thanks, but no thanks. There is no way I am eating Indian food outside India. I always try to savor the local cuisines of course within my own limits.

Balicious was a small restaurant serving traditional Indonesian fare. Dinner was a mix of seafood and chicken prepared in Indonesian style followed by dessert.

[vibbs]

Day 2. Beach time and a walk to Nusa Dua beach for more beach time!(30th August 2019)

The plan for the day was to spend some time in the beach at resort before the Low Tide and then head towards Nusa Dua Beach around Lunch time.

Some beautiful views of the crystal Blue sea and the idyllic settings at the beach.







Now for Lunch!

Our target was The Pirate Bay restaurant

It was a 2.5 Kms walk from the resort. We could opt for a taxi or free shuttle, but decided to take a walk.

Bali is clean. The population density is almost 750 per Km. Made me wonder what prevents us from being like this?





An Indian Restaurant. We gave it a miss.



We were at Pirate Bay past noon. (This first pic though is from a little later in the day)





We ordered a large Sea food Platter called the Pirates Basket.



My daughter was fast asleep. So we spent some time in the hut at the restaurant. There were Machan sort of things as well. But we settled for one of the huts on the ground.

The Low tide had hit by the time we were done from restaurant.



We decided to head to a near by shopping complex. Quite similar to the shopping malls back home so not much new from a shopping point of view.



Another Ganesha.



Food options were tempting though, but we had already booked for a dinner at our Resort.

The dinner was accompanied by a live performance of Balinese Frog Dance. It is based on a traditional Balinese folk lore but is tough to follow without knowing the language.

[vibbs]

Day 3: Bali Zoo, Sacred Monkey Forest and Ubud Central Market (31st August 2019)

So we decided to do some touristy things on the third day.

Again did not want to cram too many places. We decided to start with Bali zoo for our daughter followed by Batuan Temple, Sacred Monkey Forest and finally Ubud Central market to do some Local shopping.

Getting around in Bali is mainly through rented cars, cabs or rented two wheelers. Traffic is chaotic, many roads are single lane. Public transport was sort of non existent. I don't remember seeing any buses.

We decided to hire the same guy who had come to pick us up at the airport. His name was Made Tomi. Was a bit over enthusiastic to sell various one day trips. Perhaps he could not wrap his head around our intention to not see all the tourist places that everyone go to. The ride was a Toyota Innova and I anticipated around 3-4 hrs on the road today.

Zoo was well kept. There are different packages for the zoo. We took the basic one which costs IDR 3,95,000 per adult and 2,80,000 per child.

My daughter was however more interested in the water park.

Bali is filled with temples. We thought we will just visit one that fell on the way to Sacred Monkey forest from the zoo at Batuan.

















The sacred Monkey Forest sanctuary is a small forest preserved as natural habitat for the monkeys in Ubud. Close to a 1000 monkeys live in this forest. It has an old temple within.

Monkeys can get naughty, but if you follow the rules you will be reasonably safe.

When we visited it was crowded. At one point I wondered if there were more humans than monkeys in the forest!

I would not say it's a must visit place but if you have decided to explore Ubud you might as well pay a visit.









Final stop for the day was Ubud central market. Missus was happy means by default I was as well.

Some sights. There were some local bargains to be picked up. But remember to haggle a lot.









We ended the day with quiet dinner at the resort itself.

[vibbs]

Day 4: More beach time and a boat ride to Turtle farm (1st September 2019)

We had no specific plan for the day. We debated if we should go out for some site seeing or just laze around the beach. Laze around the beach won the vote

However at the resort beach, there was a counter for water sports. With our young daughter this would be a difficult proposition, but they had a Boat trip on a glass bottom boat to a turtle farm. We thought this could be a good experience for our little one.

Oh and I get to be the boatman



The Turtle Farm is a place where they breed turtles and release them to wild when old enough. Some standard posing with the turtles.



Hey there!



It was probably a place I would not recommend to go. But my daughter had fun. In the end that's all what matters.

Some pics of the lunch as well.





Low tide in the evening.



Day 5: Return to Singapore (02nd September 2019)

We called Made Tomi for dropping us back to the airport.
The flight was uneventful.

Somewhere over Bali!



Bali as I mentioned before has a lot to offer. It will be injustice if we try to cover all of them in one trip. Being based in Singapore helps as it is under 3 hrs flight from here and if planned well in advance you can get good deals for flight and hotel.

In all Bali is not a very expensive place coming from India, more so if you compare Singapore. So I will be back for sure. This time on one of the smaller Islands.

[aah78]

Note from Support: Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Travelogues section.

Thanks for sharing!

[vb-saan]

Wonderful Travelogue!

Bali is indeed an inexpensive destination to travel, and flights are relatively cheap. And food its just awesome (prices are pretty steep in Nusa Dua though). My last trip was more than 10 years back, and was planning another trip during this time (Easter break); thanks to Corona for demolishing the plans

[Durango Dude]

You bring back pleasant memories of my trip to Bali in the Summer of 2018. Here are a few pics...BTW didn't you visit Ulun Danu, Ulu Watu, Nusa Lembongan, Tanah Lot... Did you have Luwak coffee..

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by vb-san

Wonderful Travelogue!

Bali is indeed an inexpensive destination to travel, and flights are relatively cheap. And food its just awesome (prices are pretty steep in Nusa Dua though). My last trip was more than 10 years back, and was planning another trip during this time (Easter break); thanks to Corona for demolishing the plans

Thank you Vb-san. I had plan to return once this year. But corona spoiled it for me as well.

Food is great. Nusa dua is the resort locality so yes expensive. Next time I plan to stay up in the interiors or in Nusa Penida.

Originally Posted by Durango Dude

You bring back pleasant memories of my trip to Bali in the Summer of 2018. Here are a few pics...BTW didn't you visit Ulun Danu, Ulu Watu, Nusa Lembongan, Tanah Lot... Did you have Luwak coffee..

Thank you for the great Pics Durango Dude.

Ulun Danu was not planned. It's more than a couple of hours drive from Nusa Dua where we stayed. With my daughter, I did not want to be spending this amount of time on road. Tanah lot as well.

Uluwatu was doable, but we opted out again not wanting to spend a lot of time traveling from one location to the other.

My next visit to Bali will be to either Nusa Dua or Nusa Lembongan. This time I had booked 2 days at Nusa Dua but cancelled later on.

A few guys did tempt me to try luwak coffee. But when I didn't have the stomach to try it when I heard from them how it's made .

On a later trip I may get the stomach to try it who knows.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Wow! So many beautiful travelogues this week - spent yesterday afternoon reading about China and today was equally good with your lovely travelogue on Bali.

Bali is one of the places which we had planned to cover later this year, if possible! No final decision made, but we were thinking of one of the options between Bali or Vietnam. In fact, I had watched a lot of videos on Bali, and even looked up for options in Lombok - which many had suggested as a less crowded peak-season alternative to Bali. Now all those travels plans will have to wait!

Also nice to finally put a face to your handle.

Originally Posted by Durango Dude

You bring back pleasant memories of my trip to Bali in the Summer of 2018.

Also @Durango Dude - Nice photography there!

[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by vibbs

Food is great. Nusa dua is the resort locality so yes expensive. Next time I plan to stay up in the interiors or in Nusa Penida.

Yes, I also stayed in Nusa Dua.

And another thing is, even though Indonesia is a Muslim country, Pork is major thing in Bali, especially the suckling pig

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

I had watched a lot of videos on Bali, and even looked up for options in Lombok - which many had suggested as a less crowded peak-season alternative to Bali.

Lombok is highly recommended, I would say much better than Bali - less touristy and largely unspoilt; Gili T especially is a gem. I did a trip there in 2018 for my wife's b'day. Will try and do a travelogue if time permits

[AJ-got-BHP]

What a refreshing travelogue on Bali there ! Rated it a well deserved 5* ! You took me back to 2013, when we visited Bali. It is a fantastic place and there are more than one reason why I would go to Bali Again. Some reasons are :

1. You feel like a Billionaire once in Bali, since Rupiah is lower than the Rupee
2. The Nusa Dua beach which offer stunning Sunrise Views
3. The Kuta Sunsets which is the Best in the world
4. The humongous Pool Villas which you can rent in Seminyak, experience of a life time at not so high cost
5. Easily available self drive cars on rent

Sharing some pictures of my visit to Bali :

Outside Denpasar Airport :


At Tanah Lot Temple :




The Mexican Restaurant between Seminyak and Tanah Lot :


Our Khayangan Villa in Seminyak :


Our Private Pool & Gazebo :


The BALI BIRD PARK was an awesome experience :


























Our Rented Suzuki (known as the ZEN Estilo in India) :


Riding an ATV through the Paddy Fields :


Dinner by the Beach in Jimbaran Bay :

[AJ-got-BHP]

You cannot miss visiting the WATERBOM PARK if you are in Bali :




The Sunset at Kuta :






An evening at the Hard Rock Cafe :


We swapped our ride for something bigger, our Rented TOYOTA AVANZA :


Strolling on the narrow roads of Bali :


AT the Hard Rock Hotel, Kuta :




Some Pulled Pork Burger :


The Sea Link that connects Kuta to Nusa Dua had just opened when we had visited. It was a treat to drive on it :




Entering Nusa Dua :




The Authentic Balinese Meal at BUMBU BALI Restaurant :

[AJ-got-BHP]

Sunrise from our resort - Ayodhya, Nusa Dua :








Within our resort :






The Iguana came to visit us during breakfast time :


A drive to Geger Beach :








At Ulu Watu :








The Beach Shack at Ulu Watu :


A different kind of transportation :


An infinity pool :


Drive back to Nusa Dua :








A few creative things that caught my attention :






Flying out of Bali is also an experience in itself. Some Snaps :








Could not resist to share my experience of Bali !!