Top Five Favourite Balinese Experiences
- Kelly McKenna
- Oct 22, 2017
- 4 min read
So my previous posts about Bali have been very much focused on where we stayed and how we got there and in some it sounds like we weren’t really having a good time. We really did enjoy our time in Bali, there were just brief moments of madness – mostly transport related to be honest – so I wanted to end the chapter on our Balinese adventure with a brief summary of our top five experiences during our time there.
5 ) Travel During The Wet Season
After some initial trepidation, we were absolutely delighted that we decided to travel in the wet season. Having now also visited Queensland and Thailand in their respective wet seasons, we really recommend it to other travellers.
The greenery is so lush and beautiful and in Bali we found that we could almost predict down to the last minute when the rains were going to come in. This meant for the most part we could place ourselves inside for storms and enjoy the great outdoors the rest of the time. Plus, we got a great amount of sun each day and we witnessed some truly spectacular tropical storms
4 ) Monkey Forest
I spent pretty much the entirety of our last week in Sydney convinced I was going to contract rabies from a monkey bite thanks to some not so great reviews on TripAdvisor. Fortunately Rich convinced me to give it a go and I’m so glad we did. After some initial panic every time I was anywhere near a monkey, I soon discovered that it was actually a really peaceful and beautiful place to explore and that the monkeys were curious more than vicious (just steer clear of feeding them bananas if you want to be left alone, they were honestly climbing on people’s faces to get to the food).
3 ) Temple Touring
One of the most beautiful things about Balinese culture is how deeply rooted it is into spirituality. Bali is a multi-religious country, but the predominant religion is Balinese Hinduism. As a result the country is full of beautiful temples, processions and it’s almost impossible to walk down the street without stepping on an offering to the Gods. We were fortunate enough to visit some really stunning temples and speak to a few locals about their beliefs.
2 ) The Alena Resort
We originally booked a different hotel for our first few days in Bali. When Rich got an extension on his contract he decided that we could spoil ourselves and pay a little extra to stay at The Alena. It was such a great decision, from the moment we arrived until the moment we left nothing was too much trouble for this hotel. We had our first bath since San Francisco (68 days) here and it was also where we had two of our favourite experiences – an early morning rice terrace walk and a traditional Balinese dinner evening.
Terrace Walk
The hotel offered a variety of activities to enjoy whilst we were there, one of which was an early morning walk around the local rice terraces. In our heads, this was a really romantic morning walk with some great photo opportunities. In reality it was bloody hard! With our guide from the hotel (who had waaaaaay too much energy for that time in the morning) we bounced through the middle of the terraces with rough, uneven terrain and small fast moving streams all around us and with the harsh unforgiving sun beating down on us. Rich took his second fall of the holiday and nearly lost his shoe and according to my journal “we were sweaty uncoordinated messes”. On reflection, it was one of our favourite moments of the holiday, we did get some really cute couple shots and even more impressively the hotel actually cleaned our shoes on our return!
Traditional Balinese Cultural Night
This was probably one of the most expensive things we did, costing 900k IDR (about £50/$100AUD – our daily budget when we travel) and really was money well spent. It was at our hotel and was advertised on a chalkboard whilst we were drinking cocktails by the pool – yes we know we really are flashpacking (insert appropriate profanity here). We had a four course meal and were entertained by some traditional Balinese music and dancing. At the time I wrote the following in my journal…
“In the spirit of getting out of our comfort zone, we were invited to join in the dancing and so we awkwardly bobbed around the stage much to the delight of the other guests and the staff.”
Not only the best thing we did in Bali, but one of our favourite experiences of our entire year away. We were collected from our hotel in the morning and drove to the northern side of the island stopping off at the Tegallalang rice terraces along the way – a much more peaceful and serene experience than our previous rice terrace adventure – before a yummy breakfast of banana pancakes. Afterwards we held a canoe over our heads and walked down to the waters edge before spending two hours canoeing on Lake Batur, surrounded by incredible scenery and just a few local fishermen. Afterwards we had a lovely Balinese lunch before heading back to our hotel. Words cannot express how much we enjoyed this excursion and would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Bali.
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