BALI - what do you think about it?

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I'm in Legian and all I can say is I haven't seen so many Southern Cross tattoos in my life. I wish I'd kept count when I got here, reckon I'd be well into triple figures by now. It's like a parade of identical cookie cutter bogans.

The outer countryside areas are still as beautiful as I remember though.

Off to Lombok and the Gilli Islands tomorrow, hopefully they'll be a bit more free of the Aussie plague.
 
estibador said:
I'm in Legian and all I can say is I haven't seen so many Southern Cross tattoos in my life. I wish I'd kept count when I got here, reckon I'd be well into triple figures by now. It's like a parade of identical cookie cutter bogans.

The outer countryside areas are still as beautiful as I remember though.

Off to Lombok and the Gilli Islands tomorrow, hopefully they'll be a bit more free of the Aussie plague.
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Yeah some of the countryside is awesome.

I had a great hour or so years ago trying out my Indonesian on some fishermen mending nets down at the beaches near a place called Soka. It was going nowhere, though plenty of laughing and smiling. But I was starting to think I had learned no Indonesian at all. Then an Indonesian guy who was with me told me they don't speak Indonesian at all. Only Balinese, and that they were pissing themselves laughing that I hadn't got that yet.
 

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You been to the Gili Islands Gav?

I'm on Gili Air at the moment and I've fallen in love with the place. The local boys down at one of the beach bars have adopted me as their brother and I sleep every night for free under the stars on the beach on one of their little berugas. Usually after they've shared ridiculously huge joints with me all night.
 
I would rather go to anywhere in Thailand before Bali.
 
kiroshi said:
after being employed in western africa for the best part of two years, i returned home via bali. i had not been before, and it had been recommended by many people as a nice place to wind down.

its full of ferals, mainly aussie ones at that. i seen it all; fights, shouting, general antisocial chimpanzee like behaviour. the culprits were all australians. i observed many of our australian brothers and sisters treating locals poorly, mocking them and taunting them in a racial fashion. thought we were liked around the world until i began to travel a few years ago. turns out most of the world are either ambivalent or spiteful towards us, with good reason too.

i liked the rural areas of the island more. ubud was good and climbing mount agung was memorable.
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by the way, where in West Africa? I am doing some work in Cote D'Ivoire and Ghana
 
estibador said:
You been to the Gili Islands Gav?

I'm on Gili Air at the moment and I've fallen in love with the place. The local boys down at one of the beach bars have adopted me as their brother and I sleep every night for free under the stars on the beach on one of their little berugas. Usually after they've shared ridiculously huge joints with me all night.
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Welcome to Paradise Esti.
 
Like anywhere, Bali is who you are with and what you make it.
I first went there as a 17 Year old in the late 70's and it was amazing. I hooked up with a bunch of Euro peeps, surfed, smoked a ton of hash, took mushies, got laid, hired a motorbike and rode around the whole island. It was incredible, one of the best times of my life. It was largely unspoiled then except for a small section of Kuta.
Now to me Kuta holds no interest whatsover, (I can see how young people would still like it) but I've still had some magic holidays in Bali over the last few years. Stay in Balian Beach (great surf!) or had up to Munduk in the mountains, do a Yoga and food tour of Ubud.
It's beautiful, cheap and the locals are lovely.
 
I tend to Agee with E shed. It's what you make of it. I was there recently for a friends wedding and had a really nice and relaxed time. Stayed on the Legian Seminyak boundary, just chilled at the beach, chatted to the locals in their shops, ate at the small places. I know Kuta is a shxt hole and there are a lot of obnoxious Aussies so I avoided that and had a really nice time. It is certainly SE Asia on training wheels. Everything is laid on and easy so if you want some adventure and cultural immersion or to get out of your comfort zone, go somewhere else. If you want a cheap and easy holiday with an Asian flavour but nothing too difficult, Bali is great.
 
Just recently had my first holiday there, arrived around midnight on the 27th Sept and was shocked by the heat and humidity as soon as i stepped out of Denpasar airport. I was told the next day it was 40 degrees that day, next day 35. Add around 80% humidity to that, it got a bit cooler after that (around low 30's) but still the humidity was stifling. Thank christ for swimming pools is all i can say.

As we turned down the road to our hotel (Bakung Beach Cottages), it was a dark single road (more like a laneway) and i thought **** where are we staying? The entrance to the hotel was nice but the impressions after that went downhill fast. We were led to the bottom of the stairs and had to climb 3 flights of stairs to our room and the air cond was not put on for us prior to arriving so the room was a fricken sauna. Straight in the pool. Overlooking the balcony from the front door of the room was a massive mud pit where they were beginning to build a new hotel.

There was no bottled water in the fridge so we had to walk down this dark laneway with about half a dozen males sitting on the side of the street, i thought i was in The Bronx and felt a bit nervous walking along with a female with these guys sitting either side of the curb.

Anyway we found a couple of 24 hr mini marts and got some bottled water. I have to say the heat and humidity (despite that fact i knew prior) was a shock to the system. I dearly wanted to shop but couldn't stand being in the street shops (for clothing etc) for more than 2 minutes as it was worse than outside and they simply don't leave you alone so i just had to end up walking away.

I'm not sure if i was just unlucky that it was a bit hotter than usual but i found it hard to cope. There are some cooler places in Bali though as i found out. We went on an all day tour that took us to one of the volcanoes (about 1000 feet above sea level) and it was quite cool up there.

One thing i learnt over there is the food and drink prices vary greatly. Most places now charge plus tax plus service charge. It can be +10% +5% or +10 +10 and end up not much different to Perth prices, especially the alcoholic drinks unless you drink Bintang (which is quite a good beer). I paid as little as $1.70 for Bintang at our hotel which did not charge any extra for taxes and service charges.

I bought a 1kg lobster for about $42 +10% +10%. Up the road they wanted about $100 plus plus. Probably the best thing about Bali is the cheap massages, and they are frigging everywhere. 2 places were very good, one of them was s**t so don't presume they all give you a good massage. Don't ask me about happy endings, i didn't ask and didn't get asked! :D

Went to the safari park which is amazing, cost about $35 but well worth it. Go in your boardies to cool off at the water park in there.

Anyway i would say it was an interesting experience and a shock to the system and i found some parts of it a bit stressful but i would go again as i think i would be better off for the experience and i would enjoy myself more the second time around knowing some of the pitfalls and what to avoid. Oh, one last thing, i was told about the smell and that Bali was not a very clean place and think i read that there was rubbish in the water on the beaches. I saw none of that, the beaches were pristine and and apart from the odd bad smell here and there i thought the streets were very clean for the population.

One other thing that impressed me was the amount of security everywhere, i was even stopped outside my own hotel as i walked back around midnight and the guy asked my room number and who i was staying with? They are obviously working hard to make Bali a safe place, they even checked the van inside and underneath before they let us in the safari park.
 
Dockersman, really interesting to read your post, and I think is probably a typical 1st time to Bali experience in many ways if there is such a thing.

Regarding accommodation, if anyone is heading this way and wants some advice feel free to ask. Same with areas to stay. Depending on what you are looking for there are huge differences in experience.

Yep, aircon and swimming pools are really important to surviving the heat and humidity. Having said that I have been back to Australia twice this year, and the heat nearly killed me. 40 degrees is actually quite rare here; 28-30 the norm + humidity. The thing that we are really careful to do is get out into the shops in the morning, and back to the pool by around 1. Then head out again around 5, down to the beaches. For a lot of tourists they will sleep in until 10 0r 11, have a slow breakfast, then go out in the stinking humidity.
 
dominguez said:
Humidity certainly takes getting used to, 27 in Sydney feels like 33 in Perth.
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Yeah the differences are interesting. I get a bit of sun here out on the motor bike and on site every day, but I had 20 minutes on the beach near Doubleview over the New Year, in the morning, and my skin burned.
 

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theGav56 said:
Thought so. And why not. I think Bali has a lot to offer like that. But if you are looking for "cultural experience" just look in other parts.

In the end Kuta is Asia-Lite as a destination. You can enjoy being somewhere else, and never leave your air-conditioned bubble, or having to eat something that you don't quite know what it began life as, or having to try and get someone who speaks no English to tell you how to treat the random infection you have picked up. You can be rude to the locals and never have to face the consequences or even be aware of what are acceptable local customs. You can walk down the street in your budgie-smugglers drinking beer, and bribe a police officer when you get busted for next to nothing.
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And this is the reason I'll never ever go to Bali. Happy to leave other Australians to it. KL will do me just fine.
 
Mmmm yeah... After all this s**t on the news every week you hear about people ie. Aids tatts, public gang beheadings, club electrocutions, brutal food poisonings and equally brutal tourist bashings I think next time we plan on taking a relaxing Bali trip we might look elsewhere. Any suggestions people? My folks told me Phuket was better and cleaner?
 
Nickos66 said:
Mmmm yeah... After all this s**t on the news every week you hear about people ie. Aids tatts, public gang beheadings, club electrocutions, brutal food poisonings and equally brutal tourist bashings I think next time we plan on taking a relaxing Bali trip we might look elsewhere. Any suggestions people? My folks told me Phuket was better and cleaner?
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If you're after a SE Asian city-type holiday, go to KL. If you prefer a more beachy type holiday, Phuket or Langkawi.

Either way Malaysia and Thailand both have everything people seem to want from a holiday to Bali....

Cheap(ish) Flights
Excellent value accommodation
Good Food
Safety (relative of course, pack your Common Sense in your Checked Baggage)
Lack-of-Culture-Shock
Friendly People
Shopping, nightlife etc when/if you want it
 
FWIW, I enjoyed Lombok heaps more than Bali. They have just opened a new airport in Lombok too. The Gilis are great, sengigi for the resorts, or head south for some quiet beaches and surf.

Seems to me that there is a moderate chance of having a crap holiday in Bali, particularly if you stay in the Kuta to Seminyak strip. Over-developed, chock full of southern cross tatts, offers of erotic massages when walking with wife and kids in Kuta, very determined hawkers on the beaches, plastic tides etc.

My holiday in Bali was so bad I have been avoiding it for ages. I'm finally going to give it another try, but nowhere near greater Kuta area this time.
 
Si Botak said:
And this is the reason I'll never ever go to Bali. Happy to leave other Australians to it. KL will do me just fine.
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I must admit I find it strange that you comment about Bali never having been here then recommend travel to Thailand (in your other post). There are many ugly-Aussie hangouts at least the equal of Kuta in Thailand. There is active participation in child-slavery in the sex industry, a drug trade that is out of control, and regular politically unstable activities. I love Thailand, but like you, I choose where to go, and Indonesia is the same.

And Nickos (I looked up the location of the resort you stayed at which was pretty much central Kuta, an area you admitted to not leaving), we moved here after there had been 2 murders on the route I used to regularly walk into Freo. I used that route instead of my preferred as I couldn't stand having to run the gamut of abusive drunks and addicts on that one. My wife worked in at the Fremantle Town Hall for a couple of years and on three occasions in that time while my three year old and I waited for her to finish work and used the Library we had to move away as fights using broken bricks and bottles, foul language and abuse of women and children in the little playground there brokeout. That is daytime in sleepy central Fremantle. Freo way to go.

In that same period our house was broken into on three occasions, twice while we were there. And it sounds like you haven't had the pleasure of being set upon by a gang of kids wielding tyre levers late at night in Northbridge. Now that's a memorable night out. How safe exactly is Perth?

I think Slacker has the right idea. Get over to the Gilis, Lombok, East Bali,Seminyak, Echo Beach. Go and stay in Sanur, Jimbaran or Nusa Dua for a great family holiday.
 
Yikes! I guess that can be par for the course in Freo, I'd only really walk around the freo streets during the day to be honest. It's not like I go there often - living in middle swan and all. But that's just messed up. I guess where i'm going with this is you can't help but hear things from friends who've been in situations and also media and well, i'm happy to just avoid the possibility of being a statistic if there's something similar but nicer without the bum rap. But then, I'm not really the one who organises the holidays, I suggest and the missus reads up and gets engrossed in it. I on the other hand just rock up, hahah.

Anyway, i'll keep an open mind when thinking about our next OS holiday, whenever the hell that might be.
 
Nickos66 said:
Yikes! I guess that can be par for the course in Freo, I'd only really walk around the freo streets during the day to be honest. It's not like I go there often - living in middle swan and all. But that's just messed up. I guess where i'm going with this is you can't help but hear things from friends who've been in situations and also media and well, i'm happy to just avoid the possibility of being a statistic if there's something similar but nicer without the bum rap. But then, I'm not really the one who organises the holidays, I suggest and the missus reads up and gets engrossed in it. I on the other hand just rock up, hahah.

Anyway, i'll keep an open mind when thinking about our next OS holiday, whenever the hell that might be.
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I am fine about Freo and think Perth generally is pretty safe provided you are sensible. Bali is the same. Any news stuff about Bali is sensationalised. Next time,you read an article or watch it on tv, substitute "Northbridge" for "Bali" and you probably won't even think it is news-worthy. I think all the bad news about Bali would be the same as any typical Friday night in Northbridge.

By the way, living overseas almost the only news you get about Australia is usually bad news ranging from massive natural disasters to politics to corruption to horror crashes to shark attacks to racist attacks to boat people catastrophes.
 
Perth's crime has progressively gotten worse and worse over the years, I personally wouldn't call it safe but it obviously depends on the situation. With little to no deterrent kids & thugs alike consider anything fair game. As for Northbridge, if Bali is the equivalent of N'bridge I wouldn't want anything to do with it. The place honestly reminds me of something out of a scene from the Escape from NY/LA movies. More or less some sort of bizarre thug and delinquent haven at the end of the day, sure there's the odd patrol officers stolling through but the odds of them being anywhere you are when you're about to get mugged/jumped is at long odds. Anyway, i'm going off on a bit of a tangent here, even the sensible aren't safe. Sensible to me would mean not putting yourself in the position to begin with ie. not going into N'bridge ever. Anyway i'm going off on a tangent here.

A girl I used to work with that I have on bookface mentioned a month or so ago how she was just strolling along through Kuta and out of nowhere witnessed a machete beheading, apparently a local gang thing. Still, not something anyone should have to witness let alone kids.
 
theGav56 said:
I must admit I find it strange that you comment about Bali never having been here then recommend travel to Thailand (in your other post). There are many ugly-Aussie hangouts at least the equal of Kuta in Thailand.
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Really? Never seen them. That could be because I know and stay with locals there? Mind you, you're correct I don't have personal perspectives on Bali because I've never been, and we all know how overblown the Media present things... maybe that is a bit harsh on my part...?

There is active participation in child-slavery in the sex industry, a drug trade that is out of control, and regular politically unstable activities. I love Thailand, but like you, I choose where to go, and Indonesia is the same.
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I'm actually going to contest this (but only a little). Whilst it's true that Thailand hasn't been the crown jewel of stability of late , overall if you look at all the countries in SE Asia that we've mentioned here they all have their issues which are either current or recent enough to still linger just under the surface, and they're serious ones. In Indo you've got seperatists and JI, Malaysia you've got May 13 style shenanigans, and in Thailand you've got what's on at the moment. I like your comment about choosing where to go, I think that's spot on... no place is perfect, and that's just something we all accept when we travel.

I heartily and completely agree with your sentiments regarding safety. I've never felt as uneasy in KLCC as I do in Northbridge or Fremantle. If Nickos goes to an area of Bali or Indonesia that isn't a Bogan Tourist trap you're almost certainly quite right - he'll have a very safe, enjoyable holiday.

If I'm avoiding Bali like the plague, in fairness it's probably more accurate to say I'm avoiding Australian tourists like the plague. I'm not a navel gazer, but from what I've experienced overseas we don't tend to behave as well as we should.
 
Nickos66 said:
A girl I used to work with that I have on bookface mentioned a month or so ago how she was just strolling along through Kuta and out of nowhere witnessed a machete beheading, apparently a local gang thing. Still, not something anyone should have to witness let alone kids.
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This is going to sound ridiculous mate, but don't let this scare you off any SE Asian location. The whole brutally-hacked-to-death-by-machete thing is pretty much the way serious criminals do their violence ANYWHERE south of the same latitude that Guangzhou is on and North of Darwin.

Ordinary people don't generally have too much to fear from that kinda thing, and tourists even less. Just use the same common sense you use anywhere.... like I said in a previous post, I've felt unsafer here at home than I have in KLCC.
 
Nickos66 said:
Perth's crime has progressively gotten worse and worse over the years, I personally wouldn't call it safe but it obviously depends on the situation. With little to no deterrent kids & thugs alike consider anything fair game. As for Northbridge, if Bali is the equivalent of N'bridge I wouldn't want anything to do with it. The place honestly reminds me of something out of a scene from the Escape from NY/LA movies. More or less some sort of bizarre thug and delinquent haven at the end of the day, sure there's the odd patrol officers stolling through but the odds of them being anywhere you are when you're about to get mugged/jumped is at long odds. Anyway, i'm going off on a bit of a tangent here, even the sensible aren't safe. Sensible to me would mean not putting yourself in the position to begin with ie. not going into N'bridge ever. Anyway i'm going off on a tangent here.

A girl I used to work with that I have on bookface mentioned a month or so ago how she was just strolling along through Kuta and out of nowhere witnessed a machete beheading, apparently a local gang thing. Still, not something anyone should have to witness let alone kids.
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With respect Nickos, you are being s l o w here. Kuta central, near where your wife selected for you to stay, is like Northbridge. I cannot recall hearing almost anything "bad" outside of that area. For sure you'll get offered a happy ending, asked for triple the price for a "genuine" Rolex, and you won't be able to snooze on the beach because someone will want to sell you a pineapple-bintang-manicure-wood carving-kite every 2-3 minutes. But the only beheading you'll get will be from the lady boys.

The Australian equal of Bali would be Tasmania if anything.
 
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