Uluwatu, Kuta, Seminyak and Ubud: How we spent two weeks in Bali

After spending nine months in Australia, Bali was a very different and welcome change of pace. The weather and surroundings were beautiful; the food and drinks were delicious (and cheap!) and the people were some of the friendliest I have ever met. Spending two weeks in Bali was like spending two weeks in paradise, making it easy to see how it has gained the accolades  “the Island of the Gods” and “the Last Paradise on Earth”. During our time in Bali, we travelled across four main areas: Uluwatu, Kuta, Seminyak and Ubud.

Uluwatu

I have always wanted to stay in a tree house in Bali, or somewhere equally as rustic and unique. We managed to find the perfect accommodation to fulfill this fantasy in the form of a beautiful boutique hotel called The Alchemist, where we spent our first few days in the Fairy Tale Cabin in Magical Forest.

Top tip: When getting a taxi anywhere in Bali with a non-English speaking driver, make sure you are able to provide them with the full and exact address of where you want to go before setting off. This will save you from being driven an hour in the wrong direction and having to pay a double fare like we did on our way to The Alchemist!

When we arrived, we were shown to the most gorgeous pool area I have ever seen and provided with welcome drinks. 

The pool area at The Alchemist

Welcome drinks at The Alchemist

The cabin itself really was like something out of a fairy tale. Built with exposed brick and distressed wood, it had a cone shaped thatched roof; an outdoor waterfall shower and a spiral staircase that led up to a four-poster bed adorned with princess drapes. (“Princess drapes” may or may not be my romanticised phrasing of “mosquito nets”. Life’s all about perspective!) I didn’t know whether I was going to end up falling asleep for a hundred years or being chased away by three angry bears, but I was definitely going to enjoy my stay there in the meantime.

Fairy Tale Cabin in Magical Forest, The Alchemist

We spent most of our time in Uluwatu relaxing by the lagoon-style pool and visiting Balangan Beach, where we watched the sunset from wooden shacks. We also sampled some authentic Indonesian cuisine for the first time, such as Nasi Goreng, Mie Goreng, Sate and Beef Rendang, all of which I heartily recommend.

Top tip: The best way to experience real Indonesian food is to visit a Warung, which is a small Indonesian restaurant or café. You will see them everywhere and they sell the most authentic and cheap food you will find.

Beef Rendang

An assortment of Indonesian food that we got at a Warung

The most popular alcoholic drink in Bali is an Indonesian beer called Bintang. It is very cheap, generally equating to only around £2 a bottle, and became our drink of choice during our stay. Contrastingly, wine (our usual drink of choice) is much more expensive than most other drinks in Bali due to importation. I’m not usually a beer drinker but a combination of these factors led to me enjoying my fair share of Bintangs during our stay. When in Rome!

Mie Goreng, Nasi Goreng and Bintangs on Balangan Beach whilst watching the sunset

Top tip: If, like me, you’re not much of a beer drinker but want to get involved in Indonesian drinking culture with a Bintang, order a Bintang Radler. These are lemon or orange flavoured beers and are delicious!

Kuta

Kuta is often referred to as “Magaluf for Aussies”. It was definitely the busiest, most built-up and most commercialised area of Bali that we visited, giving off a party tourist vibe that bolstered its reputation. For this reason, we decided not to stay in Kuta, but in Seminyak, which is a little further up the coast and a bit more chilled out. However, we did take a walk down the beach to visit Kuta during the day on a few occasions. If you need to visit a shopping mall or are missing your Western food chains, Kuta is the place to go.

Without a doubt, the best thing that we did in Kuta was to release baby sea turtles into the ocean with the Bali Sea Turtle Society. The BSTS are a charity who collect sea turtle eggs and relocate them to a protected hatchery so as to give them a better chance of surviving the many threats they face in the wild. Once the sea turtles have hatched, they allow the public to release them into the ocean. Although, we were told that only 1 in 1,000 sea turtles released would survive into adulthood.

Me with my baby sea turtle before releasing it into the ocean

It was such an amazing and heartwarming experience getting to watch a beach full of baby sea turtles making their way to the ocean for the first time and cheering them on as they went. The BSTS do sea turtle releases from the Kuta Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Centre most days between March and October (nesting and hatching season), which they announce the timings for on their Facebook page. It is free to release a baby sea turtle with BSTS but, as they are a charity, they do ask for and appreciate donations.

Top tip: If you release baby sea turtles into the ocean with BSTS, watch where you step! Remember that you will be surrounded by lots of baby sea turtles trying to make their way into the ocean for the first time. This is especially true if your feet end up in a wave – stay very still until you can see where you’re walking!

Seminyak

Seminyak is known as being the most stylish and upscale area of Bali but it is still quite hectic, with everyone wanting you to buy something from their shop; eat in their restaurant; ride in their taxi; give you a massage or braid your hair. Pavements are few and far between and there are more mopeds, stray dogs and offerings to the Gods than space to walk. We found ourselves shuffling along the sides of the roads, politely reprising “no, thank you!” as we went. Fortunately, this was a small price to pay for the tropical paradise of the surroundings. 

Top tip: Everywhere you go in Bali, you will see offerings that have been left for the Gods. These are little trays made of bamboo leaves and filled with things such as flowers, biscuits, cigarettes and incense sticks. Try to walk around these and not step over them wherever you can, as stepping over them is seen to be very disrespectful.

The beaches of Seminyak are lined with bars and restaurants, each offering a sea of colourful bean bag chairs and live music. If you are in Seminyak, I would recommend grabbing a bean bag, ordering yourself a Bintang and settling down for a wonderful view of the sunset, which turns the sky beautiful shades of pink and purple.

Watching the sunset in Seminyak with a cocktail

Ubud

Ubud was our favourite place that we visited in Bali. It had the most to do and was a lot calmer than both Kuta and Seminyak: more pavements and less shouting. Our hotel was also amazing, with a rooftop infinity pool that overlooked rice paddies.

Me swimming in our hotel infinity pool

Six things to do whilst in Ubud

1. Visit the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary

The hotel we stayed in was on the same road as the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary and so this was the first place we headed when we arrived. It was a really fun experience to walk around the sanctuary, getting to be up close to so many monkeys who were just wandering around, living their lives and generally being very cute and funny. That was until one monkey decided to jump on to my head and try to get into my backpack. I’d read before going to the sanctuary that if a monkey ever jumps on to you, you just need to walk away slowly and it will jump straight back off. This monkey did not want to jump off. It clawed and bared its teeth at Nick as he bravely tried to get it off my back. Eventually, he did manage to get the monkey off my back (figuratively and literally) before it did something awful like climb up a tree with all of our bank cards and money or poo on my head. I walked around the rest of the sanctuary a lot more cautiously after that.

A monkey at the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary

Top tip: If you are visiting the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary with a backpack, wear it backwards to stop any cheeky monkeys from being able to get in there. They don’t have any trouble opening a zip!

2. Have a look around the Ubud Art Market

The Ubud Art Market is across the road from Ubud Palace and definitely worth checking out. It is open daily and has lots of stalls selling a variety of souvenirs that you can get for a bargain (depending on your haggling skills!) I treated myself to a straw bag from this market as we had been seeing them everywhere around Bali and I loved them! Interestingly, our taxi driver told us that the stalls there act as a food market for locals at dawn and then change to attract tourists later in the day.

Straw bags at the Ubud Art Market

3. Watch a dance show at Ubud Palace

You can’t go to Ubud without giving Ubud Palace a visit. It’s quite small but has some impressive architecture and is worth a look around. You can even return in the evening to see a traditional Balinese dance performance.

Me at Ubud Palace

 

Traditional Balinese dancers at Ubud Palace

4. Treat yourself to a spa day

One thing that I really wanted to do whilst in Bali was to experience a traditional Balinese massage. I’d never had a professional massage before, but I convinced Nick to go with me to the Ubud Inn where we had a couple’s spa morning. We were given a Balinese massage followed by a coconut body scrub and a flower bath with a cup of ginger tea. It was a very lovely and relaxing start to our day.

Me in the flower bath at the Ubud Inn

Top tip: If you want to get a traditional Balinese massage whilst in Bali, make sure to get it done at a spa and don’t go with any of the women shouting at you on the street with no massage shop or spa in sight. 

5. Have dinner in a bamboo hut

That evening, we went to a restaurant called Bebek Tebasari because I’d read that they serve a very delicious duck dinner. We ordered their speciality, Bebek Betutu, which is roasted duck with Balinese spices, vegetables, snake skin-fruit pickle, steamed rice and sambals. More impressive than the amazing food was the fact that we got to eat it in a bamboo hut overlooking rice paddies, as koi fish swam beneath us and the sun set around us. It is up there as being one of the best and most memorable dining experiences I have ever had.

Me and Nick having dinner in a bamboo hut at Bebek Tebasari

Top tip: If you decide to visit Bebek Tebasari, you can get a free shuttle bus to and from any hotel in Ubud. This is something I wish we had known before walking for almost an hour along very busy main roads with no pavements to get there! I would also recommend booking in advance if you want to make sure you are seated in a bamboo hut.

6. Book on to a guided bike tour

Towards the end of our stay in Ubud, we booked on to a guided bike tour in order to see a bit more of the island. The tour group consisted of ourselves and just two other people: a really lovely Brazilian couple who were in Bali on their honeymoon.

The tour started before we even arrived at our first destination, as the driver who collected us was full of loads of interesting facts. He taught us that Balinese people use a six-month calendar, meaning that they get three birthdays a year: two Balinese and one Gregorian (the calendar that most of the world uses). He also told us that a lot of the older generations didn’t know their birthdays when ID cards were introduced, and so they just guessed or chose a date. A lot of his family members have chosen to celebrate their birthdays on New Year’s Eve, so as to make it easier for them to all have a big party.

Our first stop on the tour was at a coffee plantation where we were taught about the coffee making process and given the opportunity to do some coffee roasting ourselves.

Me doing some coffee roasting

We were then provided with a delicious breakfast of pancakes and fruit before doing a coffee and tea tasting. The most interesting coffee that we tasted was a coffee called Kopi Luwak, which is the most expensive coffee in the world. In order to make it, coffee cherries are fed to animals called Asian palm civets. The fermentation process takes place as the cherries pass through the civet’s intestines and are then pooed out, collected, roasted and drank. If the high price tag and the thought of drinking coffee that has literally been collected from an animal’s faeces aren’t enough to put you off, then I would strongly recommend avoiding this coffee on an ethical basis. The Asian palm civets used to create Kopi Luwak at the plantation we visited are never even allowed to leave the small cages they are kept in. It wasn’t the time or the place to be getting into an argument about animal rights, but it’s not a drink I will be having again.

Tea and coffee tasting

After the coffee plantation, we were driven to a lookout point, where we could see the active volcano, Mount Batur, from a distance.

Mount Batur

We were then driven up a different section of the volcano, where our bike ride began. 

Me at the start of the guided bike tour

During the bike tour, we visited a temple, lots of rice paddies and were even invited into a Balinese priest’s compound in order to see and learn about how Balinese people live. 

Me and Nick at the temple

Rice paddies

The thing I loved so much about this tour was how informative it was. We learned so much about Balinese culture at every stop we visited and it was all so interesting. At the temple, we learned that everyone in each village must attend their temple to pray or face a fine. This is with the exception of women who are menstruating or pregnant, or any family member who has had a newborn baby in the family within the last three months. This is because they are seen to be dirty. If there is a death in the village, the whole village will not go to temple as a sign of respect to the grieving family, as attending temple is supposed to be a happy occasion. At the rice paddies, we learned that the workers don’t get paid in money, but get to keep 10% of all the rice they harvest, so long as this is over 1kg. And at the compound, we learned so many interesting facts about Balinese culture that they could have a blog post all of their own. Balinese people tend to live in big compounds with their entire family, and it is the job of the youngest son to take care of the other family members as they get older. For this reason, every family wants a boy and will keep trying to have babies until they get one. In the case that a couple never manages to have a son, they can sometimes adopt a boy into their family to become the head of the household. We were taught about the way the compounds work; how the families live their lives there and the rituals surrounding their deaths when they die. We were taught about the Balinese caste system and the significance of religious offerings. It was very educational and one of the best tours I have done in that regard.

The part of the tour I liked the least was the bike riding itself. Remember earlier when I described the hectic road conditions in Bali? Well, it turns out that the only thing worse than shuffling along the side of the road in those conditions, is trying to ride a bike in the middle of it. I thought it couldn’t get much worse after an oncoming car scared me into veering off into the grass on the side of the road and a little Balinese boy had to help me up. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Towards the end of the tour, we were riding down an extremely steep and narrow road with cars driving up in the other direction, when I braked too hard, causing me to go flying over my handlebars and landing directly in the path of an oncoming car. Luckily, the driver of that car was a lot better with their brakes than I was with mine, and stopped the car before they hit me. They were really nice and got out to make sure I was okay – which I was, aside from being a bit shaken up with a badly grazed hand. Embarrassingly, I had to get picked up in a car and driven to meet the others at the final stop on the tour: a restaurant where we were provided with a delicious Indonesian lunch.

Aside from that, it was a really great tour that I would recommend booking on to if you are ever looking for something to do in Bali. Just make sure to be safe on the roads, especially if you’re not a confident cyclist!

Me and Nick on our bikes. This photo was taken shortly before I came off!

Overall, I really loved our time in Bali and would recommend a trip there to anyone!

I <3 Bali!