2 Weeks in Bali: The Pros and Cons
What I Observed, Admired, and Learned in Bali
For 2 weeks in August, after visiting Seoul, I was in Bali visiting my brother and seeing the tropical paradise he has been living in.
Going from a modern city like Seoul, directly to a third-world tourist destination like Bali was quite a change. I had an idea of what to expect though. I had been hearing about Bali from friends, and my brother who now lives there for months.
With this blog post, my intention is to write a review of my time in Bali - what I observed, admired, and learned.
First, I have an overall summary of what I did, and then you’ll find my pros and cons list.
I will also throw in a couple of tips for first-time Bali travellers as well!
Enjoy!
Landing in Bali, it is easy to be full of excitement. You feel the humid tropical air immediately. However, you are quickly greeted by horrendously long customs lines that take well over an hour to get through.
My first stop in Bali was Uluwatu. Uluwatu is a surf town, with beautiful blue beaches, cliff-side restaurants, golf courses, and temples. It feels a lot like a friendlier, safer Mexico in many senses.
My girlfriend and I stayed at a resort near a golf course. We did this to help ease into the new environment.
The water in Uluwatu was the most beautiful water we saw during our entire trip. It’s so blue and the waves are beautiful and peaceful to listen to.
We walked down a hundred stairs to the beach, nervous to have our first meal in fear of getting “Bali-belly”. Bali-belly is essentially really bad food poisoning, or a bacterial infection that causes you to throw up, and diarrhea until you are completely dehydrated, and in some rare cases, die.
With that in mind, we picked a restaurant that was busy and had good reviews.
That’s my first Bali travel tip.
Tip: If you are worried about the safety of eating at a restaurant, look for one with a lot of tourists, and check the reviews to make sure there aren’t too many “Bali-belly” 1-star reviews. There are actually a lot of options, and great ones too.
Catching beautiful sunsets was at the top of our Bali to-do list. We got to do that pretty much every night which was wonderful.
On our first night, we went to Rock-Bar in Uluwatu. This place has a minimum $30 CAD charge per person, which is a lot in Bali, but it is right by the water and has a jaw-dropping view. I would highly recommend it if you want somewhere touristy.
The following day we went to the GWK Cultural Park. There we saw the 5th biggest statue in the world. A beautiful statue of Vishnu, a Hindu deity. Seeing this statue in person was absolutely incredible.
After visiting the statue, we walked around the park and I was able to get blessings, drink some of the spring's holy water and meditate with a guru. This was an experience I wanted to have in Bali and probably one of the best parts of my whole trip.
The remainder of our time in Uluwatu was spent exploring restaurants and walking around.
After Uluwatu, we hopped on a boat and went to Nusa Lembongan.
I quickly fell in love with Nusa Lembongan. Although the only reason we went was we heard it is better to stay there overnight if you want to go explore Nusa Penida. However, I realized the island has much more to offer.
It is small, quiet, and absolutely beautiful.
This island was my favourite part of the trip because not only was the water blue and the views beautiful, but it was the only place that was truly peaceful.
After spending the night, we jumped on a boat early to get to Nusa Penida where we met our tour guide.
Our guide was amazing. He took us around the island to all the best spots - Broken Beach, Angel’s Billabong, Kelingking and Crystal Beach.
Kelingking is the best place for pictures, and had monkeys too!
I highly recommend getting a tour guide in Nusa Penida because it would have been impossible to do what we did on our own. The roads were rough and the traffic was bad. He was a life safer.
When we were done with our tour, we took a boat back to Seminyak, where my brother lives, to meet up with him, and check into our next hotel.
Seminyak is a busy touristy city. It also kind of feels like a safer Mexico.
In fact, that is something that needs to be said about Bali in general. At no point did I feel particularly unsafe. The locals are all nice, and there are so many tourists everywhere.
The majority of our time in Seminyak was spent with my brother. We went to restaurants, and a Muay Thai gym, hit the club, did some shopping and went to the beach multiple times.
When our time in Seminyak came to an end, it was time to go to Ubud.
Unfortunately by this point, both my girlfriend and I were sick. This made it fairly hard to enjoy our time in Ubud.
Ubud is the cultural hub of Bali. It’s beautiful with a lot of trees, the monkey forest, and rice terraces.
As beautiful as it is though, I could tell it wasn’t the city for me, and it wasn’t for my girlfriend either. I like big cities that are by the water, with a lot to do.
I found Ubud to have even more tourists than Seminyak, the roads to be incredibly busy, and the food to be worse than Seminyak’s. On top of that, the place we were staying had a lot of mosquitos, ants all over the walls, and garbage flowing through the water and falling down the hills surrounding it.
Keep in mind, that’s just my personal opinion, and most people would disagree with me, but I would be hesitant to go back in the future.
To finish our trip, we head back to Seminyak. At this point, my sickness was only getting worse. It was keeping me up all night and I had to call the doctor.
The doctor strapped me up to an IV and pumped me with stuff for my stomach, multivitamins and a few other things. They also gave me 5 different kinds of pills.
That ran me about $900 (luckily I have insurance). The bright side was that I was feeling better, good enough to function anyway, but it took me about 4 days to fully recover afterwards.
On our last day in Seminyak, we really just spent at the beach, shopping and eating the foods we can’t get in Canada.
The best foods I had the entire trip, aside from the incredible Wagyu burger, were all Indonesian dishes.
A lot of the trendy restaurants actually do Indonesian food really well, and I never regretted any of the dishes I got.
Tired and recovering from my illness, we hopped on a plane to Korea to get back home.
Bali was beautiful, the people were kind, and the beaches were blue.
But there were also a lot of downsides. So, let’s get to the pros and cons list to simplify it.
The pros:
Culture:
Bali’s culture is quite beautiful. You will see Hindu temples everywhere. There are ceremonies you can participate in, and traditional dances you can watch.
The servers will often have the rice on their forehead from their blessings, the hotel staff wear traditional clothing and everyone touches their heart when they say hi to you.
Bali’s culture is definitely a pro.
The food:
While you have to be careful where you eat to not get sick, there are many options that have incredible food.
As I mentioned before, the best food I had was the Indonesian dishes at trendy places. I never regretted ordering any of those dishes.
But, you can also get smoothie bowls and healthy juices everywhere.
There are also wagyu burgers, and steaks at many restaurants and for a remarkably good price.
In fact, it should be noted that the quality of food you get in Bali, for the price you get it at, is probably the best quality/price ratio anywhere I’ve ever been. Korea & Italy would also fight for that #1 spot.
The beaches:
There are beaches everywhere and most of them are incredibly beautiful.
They have awesome waves to jump in or surf if you’re into that and they are so blue and the water is clear.
I’m someone who just likes being by the water. I don’t scuba dive, surf or even snorkel, but just being by the water, walking along it, and eating near it, makes me happy and relaxed.
Bali is one of the best places I’ve ever been for beaches. If not, the best.
Scooters:
Transportation can be difficult in some countries, and expensive. Bali is not one of those countries.
You simply download the Gojek app, which works like Uber, and pick whether you want a scooter or a car.
Using the scooter, they weave through traffic to get you places quickly, and it costs under $2 CAD to get anywhere in whatever city you are in. It’s actually incredible.
If you use the cars it’s also relatively cheap, but the traffic is pretty bad and it’s not worth it unless you have to take it.
Accommodations:
Finding a place to stay in Bali is incredibly easy, and inexpensive for what you get. It doesn’t matter if you want to stay in a hotel, resort or villa, you can find something exceptional.
We stayed in a variation of all 3, however, the best spots were the villas.
The cheapest one we stayed in was $70/night and the most expensive was $200, but they were all incredible.
Our $70/night was clean, sized well, and had an absolutely incredible view. The advantage of the $200/night villa was that we had a personal pool and that the location was prime.
We were happy with both, and I’m sure you would be too.
Healthy Lifestyle:
Living a healthy life is one of the reasons why many people move to Bali. It’s extremely easy to get your hands on all sorts of meats, fruits, smoothie bowls, and healthy juices for a reasonable price.
On top of that, fitness facilities are also easy to access. You can go to the gym, train in Muay Thai, do yoga, or hit a cold plunge. Whatever you decide, it’s easy to find, and cheap to do.
The one thing that I should say about the healthy lifestyle though is that while you can be healthy, you have to be careful or where you get your vegetables because they might be washed with dirty water. Also, the locals burn their plastics and smoke a lot of cigarettes so the air can be quite irritating, and of course, unhealthy!
The cons:
Garbage:
There is garbage everywhere. While a lot of the main streets are clear, the back alleys, waterways, and bushes are filled with garbage, especially plastic bottles.
It is one of the dirtiest countries I’ve ever been to in this regard which is a shame because it’s so beautiful.
Bacteria:
You have to make sure to wash your hands after pretty much everything you touch. Whether it’s the money, doors, or someone else's hands. If you fail to do so, you will likely get sick, as I did.
It’s easy to get bacterial infections because of the dirty water, and often dirty conditions, likely due to the garbage everywhere.
Over time, most people who live there become accustomed to it, but as someone travelling there from a first-world country, you have to be cautious.
Traffic:
If you are riding in a car, it will take you a very long time to get anywhere. Even if the traffic is only for 500 meters, the cars barely move, and are bumper to bumper all day.
Traffic isn’t as much of a problem when you are riding a bike though, in certain cities. You can weave through traffic and it’s fairly quick to get anywhere.
However, it seems bike accidents are fairly common. Not only did we see a couple where people were left laying flat on the ground unconscious, but we met others who got in accidents on their vacation and were left in the hospital.
With that being said, I didn’t particularly feel unsafe at any point while riding a bike. It’s just sometimes other drivers (usually tourists) are idiots, and it puts you in danger.
Occasionally you’ll see a foreigner on a sports bike going way too fast through a residential area. It’s those people who make it dangerous for others.
Regardless, traffic is a major downside in Bali.
Tourists:
A country made beautiful by its environment and culture can be quickly ruined when it is overrun by tourists.
This is Bali’s biggest con.
There are tourists everywhere, more so than there are locals. Tourism clearly drives the economy and it has led to locals constantly trying to sell you things, and honking at you every 10 steps to try to get you in their taxi.
Tourists are quite often rude to the kind locals and it is a shame to see. On top of that, they try to take advantage of them by bargaining them down to a point that is just completely unreasonable.
Obviously, I was a tourist here too, but I don’t travel to be surrounded by other tourists, I travel to see the country and learn about the culture.
Unfortunately in Bali, tourists make it a lot worse and I would say borderline ruin it.
Slow moving:
The fact that Bali is slow-moving may not bother you as you are on vacation, and want a break. However, I like cities that move quickly, that way you can get a lot done in a short period of time.
In Bali, people tend to be a little slow-moving. They aren’t in a rush to get anywhere, and they’re often late, or bad with time predictions.
Essentially, it’s island life.
Most people would predict this prior to coming in the first place, and if you are ready for it, it’s fine. I, however, would consider the slow pace a con.
Closing Remarks
Bali is a beautiful country, with a beautiful culture. While I did enjoy my time there (mainly because of my brother and girlfriend), I will likely not return unless my brother is there long-term because there are other places I would rather visit.
The foreigners make it too busy, bring more garbage, drive up the prices, act like idiots and disrespect the kind locals.
There is so much in the world to see and that’s why I rather go to new places instead. To be clear though, if I do want another tropical vacation, I would sooner pick Bali than Mexico, which is Canada’s typical tropical destination.
For you, Bali may be the right destination, but I recommend looking into it deeply before booking, and ensuring you respect the island and locals when you do go.
Thanks for reading.
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