LT’S GUIDE TO BALI - PART 1
LT’S GUIDE TO BALI
Part 1
(based on my last trip lol)
Bali, Indonesia. Super popular holiday destination and for good reason! It’s only a 6.5 hour flight from Sydney or 3 hours from Perth, so it’s close and cheap. A lot of you guys have been too Bali or are wanting to go and so after my most recent trip I thought I would give you my highlight of the places to go and see as well as the places that weren’t so amazing. This will be in a 3 Part series of blogs so you guys don’t get bored having to read so much in one go! J
So when coming to Bali you should know a few things about money, taxis and food!
Bali money (rupiah) is over inflated, so 10,000 rupiah roughly equates to $1 Australian dollar. So when you change your money over you will become an instant millionaire as AUD$100 will become 1 million Rupiah haha. You will need to barter most places you go, especially with taxis. Which is why it is best to always try and look for a Blue Bird Taxi, these are the trusted taxi service and run on the metre not on the price you bargain for per trip. Choosing a Blue Bird taxi can be the difference between paying $3 or $15 for a quick trip as they are always trying to get the most money they can from you, which certainly adds up over the course of the trip. Once you are a little bit more confident with your surroundings and distances between places then you can use these guys taxis, but bargain for the same price as what you would get with a Blue Bird. Start lower and meet somewhere in the middle with them.
Street food mainly is a no go if you don’t want to end up sick. A lot of it is left in the sun, not prepared properly and quite often washed in the tap water during its preparation. Eat in restaurants to ensure you enjoy your entire stay and don’t end up over a toilet bowl spewing.
Don’t drink the tap water or have ice in your drink if it’s from a street vendor. The tap water is fine to wash your tooth brush and swim in, but don’t drink it. It is usually fine to have ice if from a reputable establishment, otherwise they just freeze tap water and use that for ice. The water isn’t treated and as clean as we have it here in Australia, so the locals that have grown up on it are fine, but us spoilt Aussies with sensitive stomachs quite often can’t handle it and end up with Bali Belly or diarrhoea.
Beggars. This one breaks my heart and I’m sure you will see a lot of it on the streets. “Mothers” with sleeping babies or toddlers in their laps asking you for money. This is super sad as most of them are forced into this life by the mafia, the kids may not even be theirs and quite often the kids are drugged to make sure they sleep and don’t sit there crying on the noisy crowded street. As hard as it is to resist, don’t give money to these people as its only fuels the trade even more, this is a business and the people you think you are giving money too keep very little of it. If you want to do something meaningful there are a lot of orphanages you can volunteer at or locals shops you can buy from rather than the big chains here. This country survives off tourists, so its nice to support the smaller shops.