Talking about Bali

This island is a super heavenly. You can find some breath-taking places if you got a chance they’re not crowded by tourists yet. Maybe you already heard one or some informations about Bali. There are not a lot of public transportation here. It is really suggested to have scooter/motorbike on our own. For foreigners, better get your international driving license before getting here. A few years ago, the police officers here didn’t really understand about that so with your original driving license, you can get passed, but not anymore. 

Place to live, there’s a lot of ‘kos’ or ‘kos-kosan’ (room for rent) with various price range, depends on where you live. Most of kos-kosan aren’t furnished, esp.in the working area, but we still can found the furnished ones of course. Around the touristic areas, most of kos-kosan can be rented daily and weekly too, but of course the price will be more expensive. A furnished kosan can cost between Rp750,000-Rp1,500,000, while the non-furnished can cost Rp450,000-Rp700,000. If you’re a foreigner, it’s better you look for kosan with a local friend. Scam can be everywhere when we’re not local. :)

Rent a motorbike/scooter. It’s seasonal sometimes, usually you can get for Rp450,000-Rp500,000 a month rent, but if it’s really a peak season, it can rise to Rp750,000 even Rp800,000. In Denpasar, we can find a lot of motorbike rental near Sanur.

Food. In Bali, there’s abundant of choices. From the cheapest until the most expensive ones, because local people are living there too, not only the tourists and the Standard of minimum wage in Bali is not that high. You can still find ‘nasi campur’ for Rp6000, but also a meal in a chic restaurant for Rp200,000. Your choice.

Fun. it’s easy to have fun in Bali, in a really simple way even in the most rough day. Chilling on the beach or simply strolling the villages with paddy fields are already relaxing. The other side of fun, nocturnal activities like partying and clubbing are well-supported too, regarding the number of bars, clubs, and of course the visitors who look for these types of soirees.

Will write more soon.. 

BsxxxARS

Denpasar, Bali.

Bali - Trips to do

Well well well.. It’s been a while I didn’t write any post about my life(for a moment) in Bali. Of course there are a lot already of information about Bali if you wanna visit this island. Ok, first of all you guys MUST acknowledge that Bali is a part of Indonesia. I met some persons who thought that Bali is a country. Please, do goggle, Bali is an island next to Java which is situated in Indonesia, on South East Asia. Ok, another thing I want to get straight to, as Bali is an island, it’s not a name of a city. The capital of Bali is Denpasar. If you heard a lot about Kuta, Sanur, Legian and Seminyak (the touristic sites), those are the name of areas in Denpasar. Ubud is located in Gianyar regency, on upper side of the island. While Jimbaran and Uluwatu are located on the west/south-west of the island. Nusa Dua on the other hand is located on the east/south-east of the island. 

Well, you can understand better when you do some trips exploring this island. Ok, people use compass-heading alike to show direction. They will say “Continue to the north, turn east, etc.” I wasn’t really able to follow since I didn’t use to with this system, but again, we’ll get over it. To have a full satisfaction + adventurous trip here, better use motorbike instead of cars. Too much ‘macet’(traffic) will get you blocked up to hours with car. Rental fee for a day started from 45.000 rupiahs (=4-5 USD). For a month is starting from 500.000 rupiahs.  If you’re a foreigner, better get your international permit for motorbike, since certain police officers here like to put you into trouble and finally make you pay for a certain amount for many reasons. So don’t give them a chance to.

People drive motorbikes/scooters crazily in the town. Better get used to it really fast. Not putting the turn signal or putting them 2 seconds before turning are the common things you’ll see here, so try not to get shocked. 

On this occasion, I wanna speak more about beaches in Bali. There are I don’t know exactly how many beaches on this island, but not all of them are good to swim. There are some which are better to do surfing, for beginner, medium and advanced surfers. Then you can find the beaches which are perfect to do the snorkelling and diving, and some for swimming and the rest which aren’t really good for any of it. The touristic ones like Dreamland, Kuta, Sanur, Padang-Padang and Jimbaran are indeed beautiful, but they’re more and more crowded by tourists. For some of you who want to spend a day on the beach with a bit tranquility, you can visit some other beaches, like Balangan, for example. I went here 3 times, less crowded and it’s still good to swim and some snorkelling. For beginner surfer, Canggu beach(or Echo beach) is the place, and the good spot for sunset. 

I went to Bias Tugal(little beach) and Bloo Lagoon beach not really far from Padang Bay port(the port for Lombok-Flores-eastern part destinations). The waves were quite high, it is better to go there when the period full moon is over. The sea water has also the tendency to be clearer and bluer. If you have more time in Bali, I recommend to visit Amed. It’s a bit far, up to the North part of the island, 2-3 hours from Denpasar, but it’s worth a visit. The sea is beautiful and no wave, so we can do the snorkelling there without taking any boat to the middle of the sea. The price of the guesthouse and bungalow aren’t that high either. We paid 200.000 rupiahs (less than 20 USD for a night) for a bungalow. On the way to Amed, we can also enjoy the view because we’ll use the road along the sea itself. One of the funny experience, when we passed through a village, there was a traditional balinese ceremony and there were some guys in the middle of road. We had to slow down the motorbike and there are some of them asked me to give him my sunglasses, not in the mean way but they seemed serious asking me for the sunglasses. i just smiled and said sorry then we continued driving. On the way back to Denpasar, we passed again the village with the same ceremony the day after. There were still some guys(but the different ones from the day before) in the middle of the road, and they asked the same thing, the sunglasses. :)) Maybe next time I visit Amed, I’ll bring one sunglasses extra for one of them.

Well, will continue to write again soon.. :)