BALI…Travelling Bali – The Gili Islands…January 18, 2018BaliTravelled in: October 2017 If you haven’t heard about the Gili islands, where have you been hiding… I feel like EVERYONE on my social media has been to the Gilis, so whilst in the area it would have been rude not to go and see what all the fuss was about. I visited two of the Gili islands off the coast of northern Lombok – Gili Trawangan and Gili Air. There is a third island, Gili Meno, as well as more Gili islands closer to southern Lombok. All of the islands have something unique to offer, but the main draw is the incredible white sand beaches and crystal clear waters. I arrived in the Gilis from Nusa Lembongan, there is one boat a day from Nusa Lembongan (Scoot Cruises) which takes you to Lombok and then on to Gili T. The journey takes about 3hours and can be pretty choppy, might want to be prepared if you get sea sick. We negotiated a discounted rate for the boat via our hotel on Nusa Lembongan, so check with your accommodation to see if they can get you a good deal. To get between each of the Gili Islands there are boats that depart a couple of times a day, these can be booked on the day of departure at the ferry terminal, at or tourist booths along the beach. On the way back to the mainland I arrived in Padang Bai… if you book a transfer to your onward destination with your ferry ticket be careful of being scammed when you get off the boat by the bus drivers. They will tell you that the journey to your next destination is going to take twice the amount of time that you thought it was going to, then offer you a private taxi service to get more money. DO NOT ACCEPT! The drivers are just trying to earn themselves a bit of extra cash and your journey will take the time you expected it to. Gili T Heading to Gili T I was quite apprehensive having heard very mixed reviews. My expectation was that Gili T was going to be a full on crazy party island along the lines of Koh Phi Phi in Thailand (a place I have been to, and personally didn’t like). What I got from Gili T was completely different, I was so pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed my time on Gili T. Yes, it is a bit of a party island – there are a lot of bars, and there is a party on every night, however there is so much more to discover… We stayed at Mbox Hostel which is located inland, about a 10 minute walk to the beach, and 5 minutes from the Ferry terminal. We booked a private room which cost £30 per night. I LOVED this hostel, it has such a chilled, but super sociable atmosphere. The drinks at the hostel are a lot cheaper than anywhere else on the island, and the food is really good! I highly recommend their incredible banana milkshakes to cure a hangover. My favourite thing about Gili T was the night market. The local food here is literally amazing, we ended up eating here every evening! Pick your vendor, fill a bowl, grab a bintang and eat like a king, all for about £3. Some of my favourites were the sweetcorn fritters (get them grilled) and the fried soya – out of this world. For dessert head to Ice Cream Roll Hulala for some shaved ice cream, it is a must try, SO deliciously creamy. There is also a great Frozen Yoghurt shop called Gili Yo, it is a little bit more pricey, but totally worth it. You can find this right at the back of the market. We spent our (non hungover) days walking around exploring. Trawangan is the largest of the Gili islands, but still walk-able. You can get around the whole island on foot in about 2 hours and by bike in 1 hour. If you choose to hire a bike make sure to ask for a mountain bikes as a lot of the paths are covered in sand, dirt or dust, and the thinner tyres just don’t cut it. Head to the northern point of the island for what is in my opinion the best beaches (also where you will find the famous Gili Swings) it is much quieter this side, but there are some lovely luxury beach resorts to stay in. Head to the east of the island to watch the sunset over mainland Bali, on a clear day you will spot active volcano Mt Agung. There are plenty of beach bars where you can grab a beanbag and sit and watch the sun come down. If like me you came to the Gilis as you heard you might get to see some turtles, a great place to start is at the turtle hatchery on the eastern beaches – a small conservation project and hatchery which focuses on releasing turtles back in to the sea. You can also see turtles back in their natural habitat when you are out snorkeling, there are recommended spots on each of the Gili islands. I have found a map of the best places on Gili T here! I found some great little shops on Gili T! Head towards the market and the road to the right has some beautiful boutique clothing stores. I also stumbled across a few lovely jewelry stands that lined the southern beaches, a great place to pick up an ankle bracelet or souvenir. For nightlife you will find this all along the southern beaches. You can’t really miss it! The Irish Bar is great place for a casual drink with live music if you are out for a more chilled night. For something heavier and more lively head to Sama Sama or Ombak Bar. Gili Air Closest to Lombok you will find Gili Air. We stayed at Samata Village, a new development which has a beautiful pool, outdoor showers, and sits within close proximity to the beach. This is the perfect place to stay for complete relaxation. Although much quieter than Gili T, Gili Air still has a great atmosphere, plenty of restaurants to eat at, beaches to explore and a whole load of chilling out to be done. The island is smaller than Gili T and can be walked around in about an hour. The main commercial area is located adjacent to the ferry terminal, with most restaurants and dive hotels located along the south eastern side, sunset bars on the western side, and snorkeling spots in the north. The food on Gili Air was really incredible, and offered much better value than the restaurants on Gili T! Nothing quite compared to Gili T night market though… Some of the best places we ate at were… Scooperific – A great place to grab a bean bag, eat something sweet and admire the view. I ordered my favourite Oreo Milkshake and sat and read my book in their upstairs seating area. The Lemongrass – This place doesn’t look like much, but the food is excellent. I had the best Beef Rendang curry I have ever eaten here! Rubys Cafe – All home cooked food, Rubys is always busy. They serve a fantastic Indonesian curry. Sharkbites – For a really decent burger and tasty desert this place is fantastic. For sunset I really liked heading to Mowies Bar. They also do food if you wanted to spend the whole evening there, I didn’t try it, but saw some come out and it looked really good! Which Gili Island should you choose? It’s a tough question, especially if you are on a short time limit… Gili T is great for everything, there is a lot more choice here, and I would go back here just for the food at the night market. If you are worried about it being too rowdy, don’t, the nightlife is really easy to avoid. The island is pretty big and the north side of the island is a lot quieter. I think Gili T offers something for everyone. The only thing I would say is that is is quite an expensive island and there are a lot of tourist traps. Gili Air is the perfect place to go if you want to completely relax, but also have the option of civilization when needed. It is super chilled, but there are still things to do. Everything was reasonably priced, plus the island is smaller, so much easier to get around. The restaurants are also a bit more quirky and authentic than on Gili T. Gili Meno – I didn’t go here, but from my understanding this is the island to go to if you want to just sit on the beach and relax, without any interuptions for the duration of your stay. Whichever you choose, get yourselves to the Gilis, you won’t regret it… 😉 ... Read more...Travelling Bali – Nusa Lembongan & Cenigan…January 13, 2018BaliTravelled in: October 2017 Nusa Lembongan is an island south of Bali. It is one of 3 islands – Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Cenigan and Nusa Penida. I unfortunately didn’t have enough time to make it over to the bigger island of Nusa Penida, but managed to explore the other two smaller islands. Nusa Lembongan is only a 30 minute speed boat journey from Sanur on mainland Bali. We used the ferry service Scoot. For such a short journey the ticket price is quite expensive… A lot of the ferry services will rip you off and charge extortionate prices to tourists – try to negotiate a discount, and book through the hotel you are staying at. Nusa Lembongan is a gem of an island, and well worth a visit! It is off the main tourist path, so offers a more laid back and authentic Balinese experience. Lembongan island is fairly small, but size-able enough to need a bike or scooter to get around. Lembongan is joined to Cenigan by a yellow suspension bridge, so it is really easy to explore both islands in one trip. We stayed at Ponduk Baruna Frangipani, which was a lovely villa style accommodation on the main strip, Jungut Batu. I would say this is the best area to stay in Lembongan, as this is where the majority of the beach bars and restaurants are. The staff at Ponduk Baruna were some of the nicest people we met throughout our trip, and the accommodation itself was beautiful. There is also a great restaurant on site called The Sampan, which served some great western and Indonesian dishes. Despite being slightly scarred by our accident in Uluwatu, we hired another scooter to explore the islands. There are only a few main roads on Nusa Lemongan, so it is fairly easy to navigate. The most famous attraction of Nusa Lembongan is the yellow suspension bridge, which takes you over to Nusa Cenigan. Driving over the bridge and exploring the small island was one of my favourite days of our trip. Nusa Cenigan is beautiful, untouched and super chilled. We started the day off by heading to the Blue Lagoon and watched some brave travelers cliff jumping in to the choppy water below. We then spent the afternoon relaxing and eating at Le Pirate, which is a great pool hang spot, that offers amazing views over the seaweed farms. Back on Nusa Lembongan we spent some time at Dreambeach. There is accommodation here called Dream Beach Huts, which has an infinity pool overlooking the ocean, however during the day this place if full of bus loads of tourists, so I wouldn’t say it is the most relaxing place to reside. A great place to admire views of the island is at Panarama View Point. On a clear day you would be able to see right over to the mainland and get a clear image of the scale of Balis active volcano Mt Agung, but in this pic it’s behind that big grey cloud… There are not a huge amount of restaurants on the island, but one of our favourites was The Lemongrass, which served absolutely amazing food at very good value. Bali Eco Deli also offered a great afternoon coffee and cake. For beach chills an amazing spot is in front of the D’Nusa beach resort, the sand here gets raked daily so it is super clean and offers some beautiful views. It’s also worth a visit up to the northern beaches of the island near the Mangroves. Here you get a better sighting of Mount Agung, plus there are also some great local restaurants to get a good taste of some classic Indonesian food. For sunset we found Blue Point on Jungut Batu beach a great spot to head for some beanbag chills, cocunuts and bintangs. Other things to do on the island involve mangrove tours and swimming with manta-ray, unfortunately I couldn’t quite fit these in. There is also Mushroom Beach for another sunbathing spot, again didn’t quite make it here. Maybe next time as I will definitely be coming back! A couple of practicalities to consider… There is only one pharmacy on the island, which is located on the main stretch of Jungut Batu. Prices here are super inflated compared to the mainland, so if you need any toiletries or medical supplies I would advise to get these before you come. Cash points are few and far between, so make sure you have enough cash to support you through your stay. Jungut Batu is where the main stretch of civilization is, so if you like to be in the middle of all the action, and don’t want to have to walk/drive to the center, this is the best place to situate yourself. There’s one more Travelling Bali post to come keep an eye out for my post on The Gili Islands… In the meantime, check out my post on Mainland Bali here!... Read more...Travelling Bali – The Mainland…January 8, 2018BaliTravelled in: October 2017 Finding a long haul beach holiday destination for an October break was tricky. I looked in to South East Asia, it was rainy season. I looked in to Mexico, it was rainy season. I looked in to South America, also in rainy season. EVERYWHERE I wanted to go was in rainy season, except Bali! I was super excited to plan a trip to Bali having seen so many incredible photos. Bali looked perfect on instagram, and it is even more perfect in real life! We spent 16 incredible days in Bali! I would genuinely go as far as saying that this was the best holiday I have ever been on. Despite a few minor hiccups along the way (an overactive volcano and a minor scooter crash), we had the best time and visited so many amazing places on the west coast. We split our time between mainland Bali, Nusa Lembongan and The Gili Islands, each destination a completely different vibe and experience. It’s all too much to write in one post so I will break it down by location, but this was my overall Bali itinerary… MY BALI ITINERARY: Kuta – 1 night Uluwatu – 3 nights Nusa Lembongan – 3 nights Gili T – 3 nights Gili Air – 2 nights Canggu – 3 nights Seminyak – 1 night Kuta Kuta wasn’t high up on my list of places to visit in Bali, however my flight from Singapore didn’t arrive until midnight in to Denpassar, so a quick stopover in Kuta was necessary to get some rest after 20 hours of traveling. We stayed at The Ohana Hotel which is about 10 minutes from the airport and close to the center of Kuta. For £20 per night you can’t go wrong. We had brunch in Kuta at Legian 27 Cafe, where I experienced my first smoothie bowl of the holiday. If you are going to Bali purely for a big drinking and clubbing scene Kuta would probably be a good place to spend your time. Uluwatu First of all its worth mentioning that Uluwatu spans across a vast area. We stayed close to Uluwatu Beach at De Sapphire Cliff Villas. In my opinion this was a perfect location as we were within close walking distance to a handful of great restaurants and bars, then everything else was only a short scooter journey away. De Sapphire Cliff Villas offers luxury accommodation at really reasonable prices, we paid roughly £60 per night for a pool side room which looked out to incredible views and included breakfast… We rented a scooter for 2 days of our stay here and spent most of our time driving around exploring what the area had to offer. We did have a minor accident on the scooter due to some rough gravel on the road that went down to our hotel, so watch out for rough patches on the roads, otherwise Uluwatu is a fairly quiet and safe place to drive. Remember to always wear a helmet and proper shoes though! It could save your life/feet if you do accidentally fall off:) Some of my favourite spots in the area were… Bingin Beach – The Uluwatu area is located on top a cliff, so any beaches you want to visit are always going to require a bit of trek down to. Bingin was our first beach stop and definitely the perfect place for a day of doing nothing. The beach itself is a mix of sand, pebbles and rocks so it’s a really cool landscape and lined with Robinson Crusoe style beach huts and bars. Uluwatu Temple – A great spot to take in the Balinese culture. The best time of day to visit is at sunset. There are evening cultural shows at the Temple, we didn’t make it for this, but I did read very mixed reviews, so don’t think we missed much. As with most temples the site is crawling with monkeys, so watch out for them and keep your valuable belongings hidden. Single Finns – This is the place to be on a Sunday evening for sunset. Drinks are a bit more expensive that you would usually pay, but the views are incredible, the music is good and the atmosphere is really fun. Make sure you arrive early to get a seat for the evening. Uluwatu Gym – Wanting to keep fit whilst we were away, we scoured the area for a gym and this is the only place we could find. It was old school, a bit grubby, but had everything we needed for a quick gym sesh. Some of the best food we ate in Bali was in Uluwatu, my favourite places were… The Cashew Tree – For something healthy and delicious. The lunch we had here was by far one of our best meals in Bali. Suka Espresso – For mouthwatering burgers and incredibly indulgent milkshakes! The Corner Cafe – For great happy hour deals. Different deals every day of the week. The Mango Tree – For mouthwatering tacos and a decent smoothie. Uluwatu was one of my fave locations in Bali, well worth a visit! Canggu A few miles up the coast from Seminyak you will find Canggu, (pronounced CHANG-GU). This hipster hangout is a surfers hot spot, and foodie heaven. We wanted to stay at The Slow, a beautiful hotel right in the heart of Canggu, but sadly it was fully booked for the duration of our stay, so we opted for Echo Beach Resort. We got an incredible deal and booked a penthouse suite which had 2 private balconies and a roof terrace, just off the main road Batu Bolong, for £50 a night. The main attraction to Canggu is to surf, but I still haven’t quite recovered from my 3 day surf camp experience in Australia 4 years ago. I didn’t attempt it again as I feel like I have already discovered it’s not my sport. Instead I set up a comfy spot on the beach and admired the surfers from afar. One thing I did do a lot of in Canggu though was eat – there are so many amazing places… Crate Cafe – For an incredible brunch and a very instagramable smoothie. Dandelion – For some typical Indonesian food in a beautiful setting. They also strive for above and beyond service. Shady Shack – Another incredible brunch spot, with a super healthy menu. For a night out head to The Lawn! We were there on Halloween and it was a lot of fun, everyone went all out with their costumes. This is also a great place to come and watch the sunset. Old Mans is also a hot spot for this. Ubud We took an UBER and did a day trip to Ubud from Canggu. (So technically UBER is legal in Bali, but you have to be super cautious when using the service… Taxi drivers HATE UBER and there are signs everywhere saying not to use it. It’s as safe to use as anywhere else in the world, just don’t draw attention to yourself getting in the car as the UBER drivers are at risk of getting beaten up by the real taxi drivers.) Ubud is about an hours drive from Canggu so we spent the day here. My favourite thing to do in Ubud was the Camphuan ridge walk. Get dropped off at one end of this and walk the trail, it’s about 2.5km each way and offers some beautiful, green scenery. Plus there’s a cool swing… We also explored Ubud market, where you can pick up some great Balinese souvenirs (at a tourist price of course). Just outside of Ubud you will find a rows of trade shops where you can get the same things for much better prices – ask your driver or hotel where to head for this. On the way back we stopped at the Tegalalang Rice Terrace, which is a tourist trap to be honest, as soon as you get out of the car you have to pay a fee just to be in the area, but it is one of those things you have to do when in Bali. Unfortunately it started to torrentially rain when we got there so we didn’t make it down in to the fields. Ubud was a great day trip, but I cant help but think it is a bit overrated. I think the biggest attraction to it is the amazing hotels it offers, so maybe I would feel differently if we had stayed there… We had actually originally booked to stay in Bisma 8, but cancelled our reservation due to a change in our itinerary. Seminyak We only spent a day in Seminyak at the end of our trip, but just like Kuta I am glad we didn’t spend longer here as it is super saturated with tourist traps. I don’t personally have any recommendations of great places to stay in Seminyak, but check this blog out for some inspiration! We did have an amazing dinner here though at Wacko Burgers – I highly recommend this place if in the area. Other places I had been recommended, but didn’t make it to were Mexicola and the famous Potato Head Beach Club. Seminyak seemed like a great place to shop, although having traveled light with only hand luggage on this trip I sadly didn’t have any space left to buy anything. 🙁 We didn’t make it to Eastern Bali on this trip due to Mt Agung being being on high alert of eruption. Since coming home the volcano has started to erupt so be sure to check your travel will not be affected if you are planning a trip to Bali. Hopefully when it all calms down I will be back exploring more of this amazing place. Keep a look out for my next Bali post on the island of Nusa Lembongan…... Read more...
