Tips for travelling in Bali

Tips and advice for travelling in Bali:

Ah, Bali. We've all dreamt of it. The sun, waves, beautiful scenery, affordable and exciting. Bali can be what you want it to be; a relaxing chill out holiday in the sun, a thrilling surf tour or a pumping week of club nights and hangovers. But before you go, make sure you read our top advice for travelling and holidaying in Bali:

Money:

Ideally, take some money out with you before you go. Indonesian Rupiah is the currency in Bali, and at the time of writing it has an exchange rate of 10,000 rupiah to 0.71USD. So you get 71 cents for every 10,000 rupiah you buy. For Australians, it's 10,000 rupiah to 0.99AUD. So you get almost 1 dollar for every 10,000 rupiah.

When you arrive in Denpasar Airport, you will find cash machines and currency converters. However, we found that the people at the currency shops only changed cash, and if you wanted money from a card you need to get it from the cash machines that were not working. When we did find a cash machine that worked, we found ourselves getting stung by $3AUD for every transaction in fees.

So make sure you bring cash. Ideally, all the cash you will need for your stay. In terms of costs, $30AUD a day could see you fed and transported on a budget to nearby places. The upper cost for a good day's eating and exploring in Bali can be around $60AUD. To put that into perspective:

$3AUD for a light breakfast

$5-20AUD for a taxi ($5 for a 15 minute ride, around $20 for an hour)

$15AUD for a meal out in a restaurant

We survived happily for a week on about $170AUD so it really wasn't that expensive a holiday.

Accommodation:

Accommodation in Bali can vary greatly. You can go for a well-established hotel for reasonable prices (Averaging around $80AUD per night) but we found there are lots of serviced apartments for similar, if not less, money. Our preference was La House in Seminyak. La House contains large, serviced apartments that are extremely well maintained with an excellent pool and in a secluded area away from the hustle and bustle of Seminyak itself. It comes with an excellent free breakfast and the staff are exceptional. In serviced apartments, you tend to not have to deal with busy pools, loud neighbours and hundreds of children and you get a 4-5* experience for much less money. We paid $45AUD a night for both of us. Look around Trip Advisor for serviced apartments and choose your favourite. You'll be supporting local Balinese business owners rather than large international chains, and you get personal service and a much better experience.

Getting around:

Getting around Bali will usually consist of one of two ways:

- Taxi

- Moped

When you first arrive in Denpasar, you will be bombarded by taxi drivers trying to take your luggage off you and following you offering 'best prices' for their taxi. Ignore these. These taxi's are mostly unregulated will not use the taxi meter. Even the 'official' airport taxi company, which has a desk, has vastly varying prices. There is room to haggle here but we found that when my girlfriend asked for a price, she was quoted 200,000 rupiah ($20AUD) and when I asked, I was quoted 170,000 rupiah ($17AUD).

The best advice we can give is to leave the airport and head out past the car park where you will find Bluebird Taxi's. Bluebird are the most reputable taxi firm in Bali and will always use the taxi meter and will always give you the best price without the worry of whether or not you're going to have to haggle and argue with your driver.

When you're getting around in Bali itself, you will constantly be bombarded with people shouting 'Taxiiiiiii!' at you, either from the street or from passing taxi's. They will beep their horns at you and tell you to get in. You will find that there are 2 firms that look extremely similar - Bluebird and a knock-off rival. Always choose the actual Bluebird taxi's. They are a lighter shade of blue, actually have 'Bluebird' written on them and they will be the ones that are not harassing you to get a taxi. You flag them down and don't worry about finding one as there are hundreds.

The other option is to get a moped. Now be aware that riding a moped is extremely dangerous in Bali. Road laws are mostly unenforced and it's a cacophony of noise and mopeds and cars weaving around in and outside of each other. You will need an international license to ride a moped; a British driving license is not sufficient. You can pay off moped dealers but the police have a habit of flagging down foreign drivers, checking their licenses and generally doing everything they can to get you to pay them off in bribes. Be aware. Wearing a helmet is compulsory.

Private Drivers

Private drivers are another option of transport and can also double as tour guides. The most reputable company is Made Dodi, who offers comprehensive tours of Bali in modern, air conditioned and spacious cars and also offer drivers to take you where you want to go. The cost for a day for this service, and for most other rivals, is $60AUD (600,000 rupiah) for the day, regardless of how many of you there are. So if you're going to be travelling around Bali and going from beach to beach or similar, this is often a far cheaper and better bet than getting taxi's everywhere. Bali is surprisingly large, and a taxi from Seminyak to Uluwatu and back can cost around $50AUD for the return trip. For $10 more, you can get your own driver for the entire day. The tours are generally very good, taking you to all the places you want to go and the drivers wait and adjust their day around you, not hurrying you at all.

Be aware that some places you go will have arrangements with the drivers, in which they get commission for bringing you to certain places. We found ourselves being hard-sold water sports packages at a haggling desk in an aquatics company when we asked to go to a beach where we could buy a snorkel. So if people seem to be following you trying to give you the hard sell, politely ask them to leave you alone while you peruse at your leisure and make it very clear with your driver what you do and don't want to do.

Eating and drinking

There are supermarkets in Bali, as well as the chain shops like McDonald's. You can't drink tap water so make sure your apartment has some bottled water, or you stock up from the shop. Supermarket prices tend to be roughly around the same as Australia, so dining out suddenly becomes very tempting and an affordable alternative. There are many good restaurants in Seminyak and Kuta which are reasonably priced. For cheaper food, you can check out the 'warungs'; small private stalls that sell cheap items but be aware that the food standards here are not as stringent as in the supermarkets or the restaurants.

That's all for now. If I can think of anything else, I'll add it here!