Bali - Our Favorite Place


Rice fields in Bali
Bali - Lake Batran
Bali - our favorite travel destination, by far. There is just something magical about the place. Bali is one of the 17000 odd thousand islands which make up Indonesia. Yes 17000 islands! It is also the favorite destination of many, many Australian tourists and a growing number of young tourists from around the world. The flood of tourists have, over the years, changed the character of Bali somewhat and there are now areas which are just full of bars and night clubs specially catering to the hoards of young "party animals" who flock to Bali. There are, however, still many places in Bali where you can get away from the crowd and enjoy a really great holiday.
In the grounds of the Bali Spirit Hotel

Being an island, there is coastline everywhere. Many of the holiday destinations and night clubs for the younger generation are on the coast and some of the big resort hotels have lost some of their  "Bali charm" and are focusing on the masses of tourists. There are, however still also many great places along the coast where you can get away from it all a bit.
What a view! Bliss Ubud hotel in the rice fields

Friendly staff at the Bali Spirit
Bali is, even for South Africans, still a reasonably priced travel destination. The cost of hotels, local transport and food is pretty affordable. The Indonesia Rupiah has a lot of zeros on.The bank note which you will often get when drawing out money is a IDR 100 000 note. In many of the restaurants, prices are listed without the last three zeros!  This can be a bit confusing. The exchange rate for South African Rand to IDR is R 1 equals to IRD 1000, so for us, it was pretty easy to work out what things costs. Just drop the last three zeros!

Lotus cafe
Without doubt, our favorite place in Bali must be Ubud. This is some distance from the beaches - not so much in kilometers, but the time taken to travel on the narrow, highly congested roads. Ubud is the cultural hub of Bali. There is a great market which has everything from food to any type of gift or curio you can think off. The price is always highly negotiable. There are also any number of great places to eat in Ubud and the food has always been very good. The highlight for us on any trip to Ubud is to eat in the "Three Monkeys" threemonkeyscafebali.com


Looking for the "Three Moneys" only found 2!
Dinner at the Bali Spirit Hotel
Found the "Three Monkeys"

There are a growing number of Vegan restaurants which are popping up all over the place. At the end of the "Rice field walk" we passed any number of small eating places set among the rice fields. Two questions which jump to mind is what is the "rice field walk" and which end is the end? Well, the "rice field walk" is a great walk into the rice fields which surround Ubud. We have always done this walk on every trip to Bali. The walk starts from next to the Lotus Cafe. The Lotus Cafe is one of the landmarks of Ubud. There is a nice pond which is full of Lotus plants. This was one of the first restaurants in Ubud before it became the the hub of tourist activity. The walk then goes through the rice fields in a big lop and eventually makes it way back to the main street in Ubud, about a kilometer from where you started off. What we were very surprised on during the last rice field walk was the development which had taken place along the way. There are now quite a few hotels and guest houses which have sprung up. Guess this is due to the popularity of the rice field walk!


Lotus flowers in the pond at the Lotus Cafe
Along the rice field walk.

Narrow section on the rice field walk
Rice fields
Our standard operating procedure when going to Bali is to book the Bali Spirit Hotel and Spa.www.balispirithotel.com  This is a great little hotel a bit outside of Ubud and we just love it there. I will need to do a separate blog on this great hotel. On our last trip to Bali we discovered another gem of a hotel in the rice fields calls the Bliss Ubud Hotel and Spa www.blissubud.com
We just loved it there. So peaceful and rice fields right outside your room. The breakfasts were also something really special. This will also be the stuff of another blog post.

Just so much to love about Bali! Our favorite travel destination of all time!

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