Indonesia is one of my favorite places on earth! We have been lucky enough to visit Indonesia twice and I hope one day we can go back again! Even though the main purpose of our trip is for Max’s races I still make sure we get to explore as much as possible on each trip.
We have been to Bali for a ‘holiday’ and Semarang & Palembang for the MXGP races.
Let’s first talk about Indonesia! This incredible place is made up of 18,307 islands, yeah you heard that right, lots and lots of islands. It’s home to the Komodo dragon, which live on only 5 of the islands there.
Most of the flights to any of the islands all go via Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. I can’t stress this point enough though.. DO NOT fly with any other airlines other than Garuda or AirAsia, there have been at least 45 air accidents in Indonesia since 2001 and trust me from experience Lion Air is the worst airline I’ve ever been on in my life. If you need a hotel for the day or night at Jakarta airport we have used this one three times now and had a great experience every time.
Anyway enough about that, lets talk about Bali!
We have been to Bali twice, both times have been in-between two races and we have never had long enough there to do everything we wanted so at the bottom of this post I have put more info about the other amazing places that we have yet to visit but I would 100% recommend if you have the time!
On the first trip to Bali we stayed in a hotel, the hotel was literally right next to the airport and called The Patra Bali Resort . The resort was okay but definitely a lot more dated and worn down now than the photos show on their website and booking.com so don’t be fooled. I wouldn’t personally stay here again as the food wasn’t that great and there was no proper gym, but if your on a budget or only need a night or two it’s more than fine!
The second year we stayed in a serviced villa with breakfast catering, we had an amazing time and would 100% recommend doing it that way again! We were in a group of 8 and stayed in a beautiful 5 bedroom villa in a great location. The company we used greeted us at the airport and helped us with anything we needed during our stay. I booked it through Airbnb, the link is here they have a villa for every size group!
Travel in Bali is a little crazy, the first thing we do when we arrive at where we are staying is find scooters to rent. You can literally find them everywhere and they are dirt cheap!
RESTAURANTS
One of our Australian friends Holly has luckily been to Bali plenty of times on family holidays so she knew all the good spots to go for dinner! We went to Kori Restaurant & Bar one night and sat on one of the floor tables outside, it was beautiful and a really relaxed vibe, the food was unreal too!
Another one of our favorites was Motel Mexicola ! The vibe is so cool in there and there’s a dancefloor! You have to make a reservation though because its always so busy.
My favorite lunch spot for healthy fresh vegan food was KYND , it’s literally my idea of heaven, not just the food but asthetically it’s a dream! They even have their own ice cream parlor next door 🍦
Another really cool place to watch the sunset and have food or some drinks is La Plancha – Seminyak, the music is good, the food is good and its right on the beach, what more can you ask for?
If you’re into healthy food and love a more Australian style healthy brunch/breakfast like Avocado toast then Sisterfields is the place to go! The food is unbelievable and its in the perfect location to get to the beach or shops afterwards!
BEACH CLUBS
It wouldn’t be a Bali blog without mentioning the beach clubs they have to offer, we didn’t actually end up going to any as I had a lot of other places I wanted to tick off my list! But the best beach clubs to go to are;
TURTLE RELEASE
Last but not least TURTLES! 🐢 My favorite animal of all, (after my dogs). The one thing I had to do in Bali was release a baby turtle back into the sea. The Bali Sea Turtle Society (BSTS) is an organisation, run by local Indonesians for the conservation of endangered sea turtles. They work across the entire island of Bali with locals in different regions to protect sea turtles. We released a baby turtle at the Kuta Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Centre, they don’t have a schedule of when they will release the baby turtles, its announced on the day via their Facebook page and you have to be at the centre queuing to get your ticket to release a turtle and the numbers are limited. I was watching their Facebook page that day and we rushed to get there in time on our scooter and literally got the second to last ticket of the day!
Only 1 in 1000 baby turtles will survive which is just crazy, we named our little turtle Tom junior, and we still think about him all the time wondering where he is in the ocean!
RECOMMENDATIONS
- The Gili Islands – Made up of 3 beautiful islands and beaches to die for, this article has all the info you need to decide which island to visit! Its just a short boat ride away from Bali or short flight from Jakarta.
- Ubud – Rainforests and rice fields. We never got the chance to visit Ubud as the traffic in Bali is so crazy even on scooters and we only got to stay for 5 days both times we visited. But I will 100% be making sure if we go back to Bali we go to Ubud! This article will give you more tips and info.
Milly Anstie 