There are always so many questions surrounding Bali, so we've put together some of the most useful tips we've received and found along the way when travelling to Bali.
Sunscreen
We
recommend buying your sunscreen here and taking it with you. We learnt very
quickly on our last trip to Bali just how expensive it is there as it’s all
pretty much imported to Bali. So unlike most things you can snap up a
bargain on in Bali this is certainly not one of them.
Time share - if its too good to be true it usually is
In Bali you have more chance of a giant elephant dropping a wreath on your head then you do winning anything big :P
Timeshare
is EVERYWHERE in Bali and it usually starts with a local handing you a scratchy
or ticket like this of some sort and you reveal a prize. We got sucked in on
our last trip, we wasted 4 hours walking through a timeshare hotel and although
we got a free lunch and swim we don’t recommend giving these guys/gals on the
street your precious holiday time!
ICE- is it really as bad as it's made out to be?
It is a given you cannot drink Bali's tap water. But we hear a lot of people asking if the ice at restaurants and hotels are ok? Maybe rewind 10years, possibly 5 and we would have said no. But these days in Bali most places have easy access to the large drums of spring water, we didn't get sick this trip and every drink had ice!
But if you are still weary then a handy tip is to pack Glad ice cubes for ice on hand in your hotel and to take anywhere to keep
drinks cold.
Mr M
was the genius when it came to this idea and we used these more often then not
in the hotel. So we took two sorts for two different reasons- Glad Icecube bags
$4 ( we got ours from Woolies- https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/32808/glad-ice-cube-bags ). These we used in our soft
drinks and water to make them ice-cold in the hotel and even for putting in our
water bottles before we left for the days adventures.
The
second type Mr M packed was Techni Ice reusable dry-ice packs. https://www.techniice.com/dry-ice-packs.html . We cannot recommend these enough! If
you are like us and tend to adventure and like to make pit stops for ice-cold
drinks in remote little places, then you need these! We would keep these in the
freezer and when we needed them we took them out and popped them in our
insulated supermarket bag. They would keep the drinks cold throughout the whole
day/evening. Then you just pop them back in the freezer when you get to your
hotel ready for the next day.FOR RENT- Be very weery when hiring things in Bali
Make
sure to take photos of whatever it may be your hiring from scooters,
surfboards, bikes and just about anything in between. We’ve heard of some
horror stories in Bali where people have had to cough up big bucks for damage
they didn’t do. We came across one dodgy scooter hire place that would actually
steal your scooter so you had to pay up for lost property and they pocketed the
lot including the scooter- as you left it. But luckily (touch wood) this family never encounters anything like this, we haven't so far!
Aussie Power boards and Bali adaptor
Most
big chain hotels will have adaptors at the reception for guest to use (usually
free of charge) but like many things this family likes to be organised. We
always pack an Aussie power board (or your own countries) and then have a Bali
adaptor to plug into the wall- turning one outlet into many charging plugs.
Print everything and pop it in a folder
As
we said above, this family loves to be organised. So we print out absolutely
everything we purchase and book to do with Bali and put it in a plastic pocket
folder. In our folder now for this trip, is a May Calendar month with all our
hotels written down and booked days. Then there is our travel insurance, plane
tickets, passports, photocopies of our passport, hotel bookings and anything
else we may need.
TIP:
copy your calendar and give a copy to your family who won’t be travelling just
so they know your whereabouts when travelling abroad- you can never be too
safe.
Pack VERY lightly- Bali is cheap and hot
Mr M
just wouldn’t listen and packed almost a whole suitcase last time realising
very quickly for the whole month we were there he only used about 4 items of
clothing he packed (shorts, thongs, singlet, jocks) as he bought a lot of
things over there. And most the clothing we packed from homes was just too
thick and sticky over there in the humidity. From the whole trip I was
the only one to use a long sleeve top- the jumpers we never ever touched.
Yakult
two weeks before
This
tip we cannot stress enough about and our first trip to Bali was the perfect
science experiment. The girls all had Yakult once a day for two weeks before
our trip to get that good bacteria going in our guts, while Mr Dad couldn’t
stand the taste so opted not to do this, thinking the girls had gone bonkers
again with one of Mummies Pinterest finds. But not even a week into the
trip Mr Dad got knocked for a 6 with Bali Belly and not even Pocari Sweat
(another awesome tip for keeping hydrated in Bali and curing hangovers) could
help him out of this one. He had to go into the Doctors the day after Nyepi Day
and take a massive concoction of very heavy drugs. Yet the one with the
Auto Immune disease went the whole trip without even the slightest rumble of
the tummy.
Don’t drink their water
We
probably don’t need to touch base on this one as it’s pretty much Bali’s number
one rule -rather then tip. Unless of course you really want to test your tummies
abilities and push the boundaries on toilet time!
When brushing your teeth, use
bottled water. When showering keep your mouth closed at all times and spit
anything that may even slightly go into your mouth.
EXPERIMENT-- If you have a bath in your
hotel room or accommodation, just run yourself a bath with nothing in the water
and tell us what you smell! For us it was like rotten egg water- in all accoms,
so nope we rather not have that in our bodies thanks :P
And just have fun, enjoy it! When we were over there was a massive hype on terrorists as they had multiply bombings on mainland Indonesia, so Bali was put on high alert. And to be quite honest the only time we felt unsafe in Bali was walking through the Monkey Forest!