A wonderful island, cheap and friendly (Bali)

Member Name: damsmi2002

Product:	Bali
Date:	15/01/09 (58 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, easy to travel, great beaches

Disadvantages: You may struggle in places to communicate, look after belongings

Looking through the reviews there have been none for over 18 months and I feel that Bali is a wonderful place so wish to share my experiences with you in a hope that you might one day visit it and see it how I saw it!

I was travelling around Australia and met up with a chap who was going to Bali for 3weeks, i decided that as I had nothing else to do, I may aswel go along with him. I had no real idea of what Bali may be like, other than a bit '3rd world' like.

We knew that it would be cheap so didnt really worry too muhc about money, however had heard of stories that there are lots of pickpockets, this certainly was not the case and we visited a lot of the island and never saw or experienced this happening once.

What is Bali like?
We stayed in three different places, Kuta, Ubud and Sanur. All three were very different and we travelled around lots of other places too. Bali is generally a very hot island in Indonesia with incredibly nice beaches which are great for surfing if that is what you are into. There are not many cars, most people get around on mopeds, however travelling the island is very easy. You can hire a moped for about £2 a day, or a bike for about 50p, we once paid a taxi driver £20 and he became our personal cheauffer for the day! taking us absolutly anywhere we wanted. Surprisingly english is widely spoken, however it is quite broken and you have to speak veyr clearly and slowly.

There is a lot of hysteria around Bali since the bombings in 2002 and this does show as the economy is still recovering from a severe lack of tourism. We went during what supposed to be the height of the season, however we found it very easy to just turn up at a hotel and get a room.


Places to stay:

As mentioned we stayed in three different places, all were hotels with breakfast and either 2,3 or 4 star and neither cost us more than £4 a night!

Kuta is very much party town, lots of clubs and pbs and does get very rowdy at night. There are ver nice beaches there and lots of stall sellers which do get annoying after a while. You get the impression that it is 'lets see what we can get from the white man' and you have to have your bartering head on if you want to buy anything.

Ubud is on the approach to a mountain, therefor eis higher up so was quite a bit cooler. However due to this it is much more cultural and hardly any clubs. There wasnt an awful lot to do here but you could really get into the culture and talk to the locals.

Sanur is a bit inbetween the two. Its a large town and has a mixture of clubs, beaches, shops and culture. Overall saunr was our favourite as in was a happy medium.

What is there to do?
A lot of people simply went to relax as the weather was gorgeous, however there are a few things to do other than beaches and pubs. We got tours up a mountain and went out of the way to the smaller towns to get an idea of what life is really like.
We hired bikes and just biked around to wherever which was nice to see what you might come across.
We also took an eco tour, which was a biking tour that took you on a cultural experience. We visited Balinese houses and helped out harvesting rice etc. You can do this if you just ask people on the farms too and is highly reccommended.
There are a huge amount of water sports available for hardly anything either and visits to smaller islands are reccommened, although we didnt go ourselves.
There are so many restuarants to visit and as the prices are so cheap it doesnt pay to cook for yourself. We were eating huge buffets, which contained almost anything you could wish for for only £8, and that was expensive for Bali.

Overall i would reccommend a visit to Bali as the loacls are veyr friendly and the island is just beautiful. Living costs are so cheap and although the standard of living is generally lower than ours, hotels are available and are very nice. A word of warning though would be to ensure that you have your belongings safe, just incase. Also you will not need any vaccinations for visiting here, they are suggested but not compulsary, bviosly that is your choice!

Summary: Great place really not visited enough