Passport Crawl: Bali

The most stressful part of Bali is leaving the airport. After exiting customs you are greeted by 1,000 people saying “taxi, taxi”. They will actually follow you asking where you are going and how much. If you would rather not negotiate or explain where you are headed download the Grab app. You can sync your credit card and most of the time you can hail a driver. The taxi cabs have a bit of a monopoly/mafia running so occasionally you have to walk to meet your driver. But welcome to Indonesia!

I spent most of my time in Canngu but also traveled to Ubud for 2 days. There are tons of $20 or less all day tours you can take from there to explore the whole island. They will not include entrance to the temples or waterfalls so bring about double the cost of the trip plus money for lunch/souvenirs. Below are each of the places I went to and would definitely suggest visiting because you see Bali is more than just the Gili Islands.

Kintamani – Besakih Tour – 180k cost ($13)

• Goa Gajah – Elephant Cave Temple

• Tampaksiring – Holy Spring Temple

• Temen – Coffee Spice Garden
  • Included in the tour but an extra 50k ($3.5) to try the lemuk coffee.
  • Lemuk coffee
    • Step 1. Feed beans to animal
    • Step 2. Animal poops out beans
    • Step 3. Clean and roast the beans
    • Step 4. Serve to tourists

• Penelokan – The Viewing of Mount Batur & Lake Batur
  • 15k ($1) to cross the street and take pictures. This is commercialism America would be proud of.

• Besakih – The Biggest Temple in Bali
  • 60k ($4.5) entrance fee, comes with a sarong and a tour guide. They will try to charge you twice but just keep saying no.

• Klungkung – Old Court Justice (Kertagosa)
  • By this point I was exhausted and not trying to see another temple so most of the group sat outside and chatted instead of going in.

Singaraja – Lovina Tour – 240k cost ($17)

• Mengui – The Royal Family Temple

• Bedung – Coffee Spice Garden + Swing or your instagram paradise

• Tabanan – Lake Temple

• GitGit – Waterfall

• Banjar – Twin lake view and a cheap place to eat lunch. Forget those expensive buffets. They the worst.

• Tegallalang – Rice Terrace

Uluwatu – Build your own tour

• Tour companies in Canngu wanted to charge 600k for a day trip to Uluwatu. Not for this budget girl. I decided instead my bags and I were going to be like a real Balinese person and scooter around where I needed. In hindsight, the 1.5 hour ride to the temple on a scooter was not the correct move but we made it there for $5.
• Uluwatu Temple – 30k ($2) entrance fee

• Padang Padang Beach – 10k ($0.70) entrance fee

Definitely missing my $2 nasi goreng / fried rice dinners and quick cheap scooter rides through rice fields.

Definitely not missing that 6am earthquake I felt in Ubud.