Exoticca travel has some good deals and when we saw a 9-day trip (seven days in county) to Bali Indonesia for $3,000 for two, I was hooked. We had wrapped up the holiday season and it was time to get moving….why not start on the other side of world.
Bali was a destination that I had always wanted to see. I knew it as the party place for younger Australians’ and a former target for a terrorist’s attacks. It was famously cheap (right up my ally) and know for amazing beaches (right up Reva’s ally!) The options for visiting are fairly limited. Either you cruise from Singapore of Australia or take a long flight. Personally, I wanted to spend more than a day on the Island, so the Exoticca deal seemed to be the best option.
The best deal I could get required us to fly from Los Angeles….not my favorite location, but cheap and easy enough to get to. We flew in from Las Vegas a few hours before our 15-hour flight to Hong Kong and checked out the Bob Hope USO. It’s located in an Iconic building at LAX which is frequently attacked by various UFOs and monsters in the movies. Once inside, it’s very basic but anyplace with girl scout coolies and nuts is a winner in my book. I will say that eating an entire container of spicy nuts before a day of flying was definitely not my best decision.
We flew out on Cathay Pacific which is ranked as one of the top airlines in the world…not totally sure why, it’s pretty basic. 15-hour flights suck, but they are an opportunity to get caught up on all the recent movies. The flight was long but pleasant enough and the food was quite good. After a three-hour layover in Hong Kong and another four-hour flight, we landed in Bali.
This was our third Exoticca trip and communication was excellent. Before we left Hong Kong both the tour company in Bali and our tour guide had contacted us and verified our meeting point. Getting through immigration was a breeze. We had the e-visa completed and all the Bali arrival info in the system. That allowed us to use the automated immigration terminals at the airport. The driver was waiting and we were off to our hotel in Ubud. We were quite surprised that we were the only two participants on this tour…and no one would be joining us later. So, we had the driver and guide to ourselves.
Our tip was broken into two segments. The first one was in the Ubud Area with three nights at the Awatara Boutique Resort. Ubud is toward the center of Bali away from the coast and is full of Hindu temples and waterfalls. The Island has over 1,000 Hindu temples, not including the personal temples found in every house (family compound). Some of these date back hundreds of years and gives Bali its semi-mystical reputation. Overall, it’s pretty crowded. The Island has a population of 4 million and it seems that every one of them drive a scooter…most at the same time. Surprisingly, there was very little trash on the streets even though they are narrow and conjected. The Boutique hotel was tucked away from the major tourist area but there was plenty of restaurants and stores around.
The ride-share app in Indonesia is called Grab and it was only about $5 to get to the Center of Ubud. We had one day of tours and one free day here. We have met may Indonesians from Bali on the ships and always found them to be very friendly, that was the same here. Everyone was friendly, spoke English and generally was glad that we were visiting. It is a very welcoming Island. It also felt very safe…except for the traffic, especially scooters.
The temples were very interesting and everywhere. That said, they are not spectacular in comparison to many parts of the world. Also, the fact that it was difficult to tell what was a “private” or “public” temple always had me worried that I was stumbling into someone’s home. Don’t get me wrong, the temples are beautiful, and worth seeing, but they are small and most of the interesting areas are restricted. Other than the temples, most of the other planned stops were tourist traps. The monkey sanctuary was a complete tourist trap and I wouldn’t waste my time again. There are many “monkey sanctuaries” on the island and there might be some worth visiting. This one was not! Zip lines, giant swings and goofy tourist attractions seemed to be about everywhere. I think they were trying to copy Florida.
The second portion of the tour was spent on the beach. In this case we would have a day of touring, a night-time dinner show, a day snorkeling and one free (beach) day.
Our hotel was directly on the Ocean very close to the Hilton Conrad Resort. There was a brick walkway along the beach that went throughout the resort area which was extremely nice. The area overall near our hotel, minus the resorts and beachfront was very run-down. There were several closed or unfinished, resorts and a random nice shop or store, It was very much like Mexico, without the harassment, danger or Spanish. However, to be fair the further north we walked the nicer the area became. Reva commented that that part was the beautiful Bali she expected!
Other than they crazy scooters on the narrow roads it felt very safe…unlike Mexico or most Caribbean Islands,
Bali is cheap! An hour massage at the resort was only $20……if you wanted one. Dinner rarely cost more than $10 and the food was very good! But forget about drinking wine! Wine is imported and a bottle of average wine was more than night in a resort…with dinner. Beers were only a dollar or too and reasonably good…for beer, Reva found some lemon and pineapple flavored beers and was quite happy. I just sucked it up and drank the local swill. It was fine, with the exception of a local light beer….it was undrinkable…. even for me ….it went right down the drain. Also, I could not find any diet Pepsi which was sad. Lots of coke products though. We also like trying local chips and have made many interesting discoveries around the world. Not here, their potato chips and other snacks are really strange and we didn’t find a good one. We still ate them, but they were not pleasant. I think I understand now why all the cruise ship crew expensive potato chips at cruise ports…..they can’t get good ones at home.
We made a trip to the see the fire dance at the Uluwatu temple which was interesting and had a seafood dinner on Jimbaran Beach and even took the ferry over to NUSA Penida to attempt a snorkeling excursion. We found that the best part of our time, however, on the beach portion of the trip, was the time we spent walking around the brick walkway along the calm blue waters of the Indian Ocean. The beach at Nusa Dua is as pretty as any we have seen in the world. Our hotel, the Tijili Hotel was at the end of the beachfront walkway. From here we walked probably 2 miles along the water and some of the most prestigious hotels in the world. Our hotel was quite nice. I checked the price of the hotel and on Priceline it was $36 a night. Of course, we did have an upgraded room and breakfast was included. Bur for $36, this hotel was a steal, I didn’t even mind housekeeping showing up and cleaning the room…while I was in the shower!
Bali is a beautiful island which combines ancient Hindo temples and culture with world-class beaches. It’s easy to see why it remains a tourist favorite. It is well worth a visit and certainly very cheap. The biggest issue is the long flights needed to get there…..and those damn scooters.
If I was to do it again, I would probably arrange everything on my own. The hotels are very inexpensive and a driver for a day was only $61. Airfare is under $900 round trip. So, I think with a budget of $2,500 for a couple for a week, you could create a great trip. However, $3,000 with Exoticca was a very good value and less hassle.
Waddle on ducks…..but be careful….they eat a lit of ducks down here.