Bali was my dream, since… I can’t even remember since when! After three years in Australia, we finally wanted to experience some new cultures and Bali was our number one choice for holiday with our family from Slovakia. None of us had been to Bali before, none of us even visited South East Asia, but all of us are always in for any kind of adventure.
Every time before visiting a new country I try to make a good research about what to expect, what to see and where to go. Usually the research consists of reading lots of travel blogs and following all the profiles on Instagram dedicated to my destination. I pick the highlights of my trip, check where my places of interest are on the map and prepare an itinerary day by day.
As I mentioned before, we were travelling to Bali with our family. The main point of our trip was to catch up, enjoy some family time and also our wedding. Therefore, unfortunately we did not have as much time to explore the island as I would love to but I think we still made the most of our Bali ‘vacay’.
Here is our Bali itinerary day by day, I hope it will help you organize your own holiday on this magical island.
DAY 1 – Arrival
The first day is usually arrival. Tomas and I were coming from Sydney, our families from Slovakia. It is super easy to fly to Bali from Sydney, the flight takes about six hours and there are several flights a day, from low-budget airlines to the premium ones. We flew with Garuda Indonesia and I could not be more satisfied with our choice. They have great selection of entertainment on board, wifi, good food and the space in between the rows was incredible – we could (almost) fully stretch our legs which rarely happens to us (we are both quite tall and flying longer distances can be real struggle sometimes). We have never flew Garuda before, but this wasn’t our last flight with this airline for sure.
After landing in Denpasar airport, we had a car booked in advance to pick us up. If you don’t have your transport, don’t worry. There are plenty of taxi drivers waiting for customers. The only problem may be the language barrier. The official language on Bali is Indonesian, but they have also their own Balinese dialect. Have the address of your hotel ready and you should not have a problem.
Balinese roads are experience itself. The journey from the airport to our villa according to Google maps should take around an hour. Well… Even if there is no traffic, I highly doubt that it would take one hour. Maybe hour and a half. In my mind, I could see us sitting on the beach, admiring the sunset and enjoying last few calm moment before our family arrives… Soon I found out that this was a wild dream, because only the short distance from the airport to the Denpasar city centre took us around 30 minutes. After crazy 2 hours and 20 minutes we finally hit our destination, when it was complete dark.
I purposely did not book our accommodation in the main tourist areas, I wanted to have the real Bali experience. This decision had its pros and cons. On the one hand, it was not busy with tourists and we had beach for ourselves. It was beautiful, calm and quiet up there. We were surrounded only by rice fields, palm trees, black sandy beach and the ocean. On the other hand, everything was a bit too far, in the walking distance there was only one restaurant in the nearby hotel Amarta Retreat. As I mentioned before, according to Google maps, it shouldn’t have taken us more than one hour to Seminiyak, but I guess Google maps didn’t count with the traffic (which is really crazy on Bali) and bad conditions of the roads. I am still happy that we chose Tabanan for the first part of our stay because I believe that soon this area will become second Seminiyak and it will lose its charm.
Our villa – Villa Paradise Beach was located on Pasut Beach. It is beautiful open villa for 10 people. Each bedroom has its own open-air bathroom, there is large infinity pool with the view over the beach and it is a perfect venue for any kind of party. The villa owner, manager and all staff are very friendly and they will try to help you with everything. As I said, I had all our stay organized in advance, but if you go without anything booked, they will gladly help you to plan your stay.
DAY 2 – Uluwatu
On the second day I wanted to leave around the noon to visit Uluwatu Temple and have a nice dinner in the Sundays Beach Club. That was the plan. Unfortunately it was raining since early morning, plus everyone was a bit jet lagged. We managed to leave in the afternoon, but again, the traffic and weather betrayed us and it us took amazing 3 hours to get to the temple.
Uluwatu Temple is one of the Seven Sea Temples of Bali, which are situated around the whole island. It is one the most important tourist attractions with its surrounding forest, which is natural habitat for cheeky monkeys. Because we got there late we had just enough time to have a quick look around the temple and enjoy traditional Balinese performance Kecak Fire Dance. The Kecak Fire Dance is one of Bali’s most iconic art performances, famous for its dominant use of human vocals instead of musical instruments to accompany the dance-drama at its core. It is interesting to watch, but I found it little bit too long.
Our visit of Uluwatu Temple finished suddenly when we had to run away from heavy storm. Completely wet we decided to ditch the idea of dinner in the beach club and chose a sea food restaurant in Jimbaran Bay instead. The food was delicious and in the end it stopped raining so even though the plan was slightly different, I call this day success! 😀
DAY 3 – North Bali and Singaraja
The 3rd day was dedicated to North Bali. We left quite early in the morning so we can see everything we wanted. Or better to say, everything I wanted. I did not mentioned this before, but when I said that we were traveling with “our family”, I didn’t mean 5 people. We were travelling 16 people all together, me in the middle organizing every trip, every restaurant, every pick up etc. So no, of course we didn’t have enough time to see it all. We still had a great time though (and I will just have to come back to Bali in the future to see the waterfalls we missed this time).
Our first stop was Pura Bratan Temple located on the shores of Lake Bratan in the mountains near Bedugul. Located 1200 m above the sea level, the area has got cold tropical climate so it was little bit chilly (and little bit rainy) in the morning. The temple was built in 1633 for Balinese water, lake and river goddess Dewi Danu. Some of the parts of the temple complex are available only for the worshipers of Dewi Danu, but there is still plenty to see and admire for tourists as well.
After Bedugul, our drivers took us to the Wanagiri hidden hill. You may know this place from Instagram as it is really popular. The hill is actually a coffee plantation, with cool nests, swings, little houses in the trees, waterfall and other attractions to take your pictures. I admit, it is very touristy but not any less charming. Because of the cloudy weather, we had almost the whole plantation for ourselves.
Our 3rd stop for the day was second largest town on Bali and former capital, Singaraja. Singaraja literally means Lion King and it is known for its Dutch colonial heritage and hot springs. The hot springs complex is called Air Panas Banjar and it is surrounded by tropical gardens. Just a short walk from the small parking lot, through a tiny street lined with souvenir shops and you feel like you are suddenly in the middle of jungle, soaking in the sun, relaxing in hot spa, admiring heavy dragon heads spitting water into the pools. Yes, the water is hot but in the hot weather it is unexpectedly refreshing. This was one of my favourite spots on Bali.
After late lunch we were supposed to visit Gitgit waterfall, but because it was getting dark we decided to head back home. There are plenty of waterfalls in the northern part of the island, you can spend one whole day exploring only them. Hopefully one day I will be able to do so to give you better description where to find them. Hopefully it will be soon!
DAY 4 – Seminiyak
The day before the wedding! I had rafting planned for this day, but then I came to my senses and realized that it probably wasn’t the best idea. In the morning we went to Seminiyak to do some shopping and explore a little. Seminiyak is probably the most popular area among tourists and travellers, there are lots of shops, cool eateries and awesome beaches with many beach clubs. You can feel the western influences there, however it is still reasonably cheap (in comparison to Sydney or European metropolises). In the afternoon we had meeting with our wedding planner and went through the program for the next day together. This day was quite chill, we were lucky it was nice and sunny so we could enjoy the beach and our pool. In the evening we met with some our friends that we haven’t seen for 3 years! I still cannot believe that so many of our friends came such a long distance for our wedding… I will be forever thankful and I feel incredibly blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people!
DAY 5
Our wedding day! The best day of my life! I am still pinching myself that this crazy teenage dream of mine – having a beach wedding under the palm trees – came true and that we could celebrate this special day with our family and friends. <3 If you are interested, I wrote about the whole experience here. 🙂
DAY 6 – Tanah Lot
The day after the wedding. Of course we were sleeping till late, had lazy morning, eating leftovers, reviewing photos…
In the afternoon I managed to force (almost) everyone out and we went to visit Tanah Lot Temple. Just like Uluwatu Temple, Tanah Lot is one of the 7 Sea Temples along south western coast. It is hugely popular among travelers, who gather around especially for sunsets. With the low tide, you can walk to the temple itself but it is only Balinese worshipers who are allowed to enter. The whole area is cultural icon for photography and locals know it. To get to the temple you walk through a tiny, yet very busy street lined with souvenir shops, where persistent vendors will try to sell you everything from luwak coffee, through magnets and postcards to traditional ceremony masks.
After the sunset on Tanah Lot, we had a dinner in the La Laguna beach club in Canggu. La Laguna was unfortunately the only beach club we managed to visit on Bali. It has got bohemian atmosphere, delicious food and refreshing cocktails. It occupies quite waste area along Berawa beach, you can either chill outdoors on large bean bags, or have a proper dinner inside, where the quirky cool decor will wow you. The entrance is lined with old-school “gypsy” carriages and it feels like every little corner is decorated with charms and talismans.
As I don’t want to bore you with texts too long, I am going to finish now. You can read about the second part of our holidays here, with some more tips for travelers. I hope you enjoyed the article.
Have you been to Bali? What are your favorite places to visit? Where do you like to eat, drink, party..? Let me know your suggestions in the comment section below!
Cheers,
Hana
