Bali is a touristic destination famous for its beaches, nature, culture, spiritualism and… monkeys. It’s really one of our favourite places in Asia and it is there where we tested the first version of our sandals (from there: Ubud and Uluwatu names).
For us Bali was a mix of nature, colours, flavors, smells and adventures.
We love places where meet new people and at the sime time stay alone and find ourselves. Bali was the perfect place where to do it. Normally we don’t love very touristic destinations, but in this case the solution was simple, escape from big cities, rent a scooter and travel around small villages. We did of course go to the main areas, like Ubud.
It is a very famous place so we aren’t gonna explain what to visit and what not, we only recommend you to visit Bali 😉
Temple
One of the most beautiful sunsets from Uluwatu temple. The ocean and the twilight colours, just spectacular.
Culture
Bali is known for its astounding carving culture, both wood and stone. True masters of bringing material to life.
Rice paddies
There are rice paddies all over Bali, but for some reason this was the famous one, probably because it is close to Ubud. But for sure you can find quieter places. We went behind this paddy and found a very peaceful place where there were like maybe 10 people.
Yeah the roads… Sometimes you felt ok there goes an accident but somehow everybody manages their tiny space in a way that is smooth and we never saw any crashes or incidents.
The volcano
The volcano area is very different, suddenly you don’t see many people, the scenery changes too. We went to a small restaurant near the lake and the owner asked to take a photo of us at their restaurant. Maybe we ended up on the menu or a billboard 😀
The Besakih village was probably one of the least crowded places. There were us and 3 other people in the only “resort” of the village. There were no taxis, no currency exchange points. So better change money beforehand cause we had to ride like half an hour to find a place and ended up in some dude’s garage near the lake who changed our money. Ok you can think oh my god, what if they did whatever, but the people were really genuine and wanted to help, so no fake money and no robbery happened 😀 The street market with food trucks is worth checking out, very cheap and they make your dish in front of you.
Guest House / Bungalows
We stayed at some really beautiful guest houses and bungalows. You can find accomodation for any price starting at 5 euros. From 25 to 50 euros per night you can find many many options.
Ubud
Ubud is the cultural and artistic heart of the island and we found interesting performances with great aesthetics that represented an old tale or a fragment from Ramayana, the ancient Sanskrit epic.
Monkey with skills of negotiation
And as said, it’s an island of moneys. They were everywhere. In fact, these monkeys are famous for their new obtained skills of negotiation. As in, they steal an item for a tourist so that these special trained people would try to exchange the stolen item for a banana or a snack.
So, for us it was a beautiful trip, really left a mark in our hearts. A land of gods and spirits, waterfalls, lush green of amazing beauty.
Where to find more information
For more info, you can try this blog or lonely planet.
