A Rocky Start To Bali

The first stop on our big adventure was Bali. Bali is somewhere I have wanted to visit for a few years and I must admit, I had built up a rather romanticised vision of it. I’m not saying that it didn’t live up to this vision in any way, but I would certainly do some things differently if I were to return.

We had booked a hotel in Sanur for our ten-day jaunt. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bali, Sanur is a typical ‘honeymoon’ spot (something we were regularly asked about by the locals).

Our hotel was fine – cheap and cheerful which was all we needed. It had a nice pool, decent-sized room, great shower, plus it was only a fifteen-minute walk from the beach.

We arrived in the evening, severely jet-lagged having travelled from London and completely starving – so we just ordered room service (boring) and prepped ourselves for the following day.

The next morning, refreshed and ready to go, we eagerly headed for the hotel breakfast buffet. We experienced a very grey coffee courtesy of some random local goat and as a result, this was both the first and last time we had breakfast in Bali.

So…After a questionable start, we ambled over to the beach. P.S. when I say amble, I mean dodged all of the crazy scooter drivers.

Sanur beach is not the best I have ever seen, but it is nice enough.

On our first full day, we didn’t venture too far but we did stumble across a lovely little place called the Bamboo Beach Bar. It was a sort of large Tiki hut with a menu that compensated for our breakfast, so we nibbled on some small plates for lunch before making ourselves comfortable on a couple of sunbeds and basking up the glorious Indonesian heat.

After exerting SO much energy throughout that first day 😉 we gallantly moved back to the Beach Bar in the evening, where we enjoyed the stunning sunset alongside a couple of pizzas and couple of vinos.

As this happened to be our nearest beach, we found ourselves revisiting it a few times throughout the week and naturally had to explore a little further. Further down, but still along the beachfront, we found multiple luxury resorts and private villas, the kind that we had envisaged for our own trip – but we were seriously surprised by the cost. Before visiting, I heard many rumours that Bali was cheap, but I’m afraid that this is not true across the board – and I don’t really know where these people were getting their intel from!

We did our best to find a nice restaurant in Sanur for dinner, but this proved to be another challenge! Initially, we sought to avoid Western-Style eateries as it didn’t seem very adventurous, but this left us with few options in Sanur. We did try a restaurant in one of the nicer looking hotels as we were willing to pay a bit extra for a meal that didn’t disagree with our stomachs, but alas, it was not meant to be :’). In fact, the best meal we had was when we spent the day exploring Ubud – plus it was the cheapest!

As well as exploring Ubud, we also took a trip to the zoo, but aside from that, we struggled to keep ourselves busy for the whole 10-day duration, given that we weren’t able to visit any of the surrounding islands.

So, in summary: We did enjoy our time in Bali, but we definitely didn’t LOVE it. It’s a tricky place to experience on a budget,  though there are some truly beautiful landmarks which are worth seeing for yourself.