It's honestly been so long since I've been on an airplane! I miss it so much. The borders are no longer closed but I don't think my anxiety can handle being in an enclosed space for an extended amount of time. Not until the majority of our population has been vaccinated. Anyway, today I'll be sharing with you one of my travel in Bali before we got unceremoniously locked down. I thought I'd separate this post into two since I've got quite a number of pictures, so for this first one, I'll be talking about where we went and the overall experience we had in Bali. I actually went twice that year with two different groups of friends, on both occasions we stayed around Seminyak since we were expecting to be going out every night and we didn't wanna risk a long journey while drunk lol. Won't be posting any of our night activities cause it's just blurry photos and drunken rambling haha. Also, I'll be talking about my 2nd trip since the way we went around was more organized.
Unfortunately, my friends and I didn't take a lot of photos of our villa for some reason so I showed one of the only decent photos that my friend took during our entire stay. It was pretty spacious, there were three rooms, a huge living room, and a kitchen. There was six of us and if I remember correctly we only had to pay around 50 USD per person per night. The place wasn't exactly near all the shops and bars, but it was around 5-10 minute drive from the usual spots.
Day 1: Couch Potatoes at Potato Head
For our first day, we just wanted to hang around Seminyak and relax cause we were all pretty exhausted from our early flight and we were gonna be up early for our Nusa Penida trip the next day. We chose Potato Head that day cause it would give us that chill vibe that we were looking for while still being able to drink a bit.
It was honestly a good choice on our part to go here, cause you can just sit or lie down in the beds. At one point, I actually fell asleep. My friends even wondered where I was for most of the time they were taking photos. Lol. We stayed here until the sun went down before we decided to head back to our villa and drink some more. We opted not to party that night cause we had to get up early for our trip the next day. Unfortunately, I doubt you'd be interested in the drunk shenanigans of 6 gay men so I'll leave that to your imagination haha.
Day 2: Beach Boys
For this day, we had to wake up really early cause if I remember correctly, we had to take a bit of a drive to get to Nusa Penida. Btw, we just hired a driver whenever we had to go somewhere far. There's plenty of drivers that offer their services online, just gotta make sure you find the best deal for you. Anyway, we had a bit of a mishap here as half of my friends accidentally left their wallets in the villa. There are hardly any ATMs in the area so bringing cash is vital. Fortunately, my friend and I had extra cash with us so we were able to proceed for that day's agenda.
We stayed mainly on the West side of the island, in what most would consider the touristy part of the island. If I'm not mistaken, the areas we went to were Kelingking Beach, Broken Beach, Angel's Billabong and Crystal Bay. The views were absolutely breathtaking! Unfortunately, I have a fear of heights so while my friends were able to go down in Kelingking Beach, I could only take photos up top. Overall, would still recommend you take at least one whole day for this whole area as there's a lot to see.
Days 3 and 4: Temples and Jungles
For the next two days, we decided to go around and visit some temples and visit Ubud. We went to Uluwatu ( we ev, the Water Temple, Elephant Cave, and those really famous swings around Ubud. We even got to watch a night fire dance show in Uluwatu, which was pretty cool. There are ton of temples in Bali that you could visit, I think the ones we went to were the more mainstream ones. We had to cram quite a number of places in this trip so there's definitely more to see aside from these.
We tried going to Lempuyang Temple but it was so cloudy that our photos weren't exactly the best lol. Anyway, we visited the Water Temple as well which was so serene. We even had breakfast in the restaurant there, while in full view of the water lilies. It was honestly so relaxing.
For Ubud, while I wanted to take a photo in those giant swings, my body wasn't being cooperative. I was shaking when I saw the height lol. Anyway, beware of the monkeys in the temples, do not feed them and don't leave your bag open especially if you have food.
Day 5: Our Last Day
For our last day, we opted to just do some shopping in the morning and then travel to Omnia for lunch and some early night drinking. Would have honestly loved to have stayed a bit more, but we had to go back to Seminyak since it was in a pretty far area. Would definitely recommend drinking there tho, just make sure you have your transport booked accordingly if you're staying in Seminyak like us.
Overall, this was one of my most memorable trips! I would definitely recommend staying longer than we did cause there's honestly a lot of things to see. Best to really plan out where you'll be going so you won't waste most of your trip in transit. You can actually opt to stay in different areas of Bali depending on your itinerary so you don't have to keep booking for transport. We just had to cram cause we all had to take a leave from work lol. Anyway, hoping that enjoyed my story and all my photos. Hope that I encouraged you at least to consider Bali as your next destination if you haven't been. Stay tuned for Part 2: Food!