Southeast Asia: Indonesia

Hi Fam,

Continuing with the Southeast Asia series, this blog post is about Bali, Indonesia: Seminyak & Ubud specifically.

As always, I will do my best to provide a breakdown of costs incurred in each country but for some parts, I might stick to high level information such as airfare and hotel costs. To view the full itinerary from the six countries I visited in a span of four weeks, you can do so here.

After spending a day and a half in Singapore, I flew to Bali, Indonesia and met up with Oumou. For my flight to Bali, I used the United Excursionist Perk from SIN to DPS (Denpasar) so my flight was free, I only had to pay a few dollars (less than $30) for processing fees. Since I wanted to maximize my time in Singapore, I decided to take the last flight from SIN to DPS; my flight was arriving late and I did not want to deal with finding a taxi so I arranged transportation directly with the hotel and that was around $22. For our hotel, we stayed at Hotel Indigo Bali Seminyak Beach and it was really lovely. One thing that I really loved about Hotel Indigo was the layout of the property itself and they also provided multiple options for breakfast as their buffet selection was quite large.

Besides the breakfast selections, I personally did not like their in-room dining options for lunch and dinner but we found better food outside of the resort so all was well. Since Seminyak is a beach town, we did more cultural activities once we went up to Ubud in Northern Bali. In Seminyak, we decided to do a lot of relaxing, visiting different beach clubs, and a day trip to Uluwatu later on in the week.

While in Seminyak, we went to Azul Beach Club for food and vibes and walked around the nearby beach afterwards. After lounging by the pool and taking all the pictures we needed, (because you can’t go to a beach club and not do a swimsuit photoshoot, LOL) we found a local kiosk serving Chicken Satay and ordered fresh Mango juices to wash it down. As it was Oumou’s birthday that week, she picked a fine dining restaurant for us to celebrate – Mejekawi. Honestly, I was really skeptical of the place at first but the food turned out to be incredible. The restaurant is right on the water and if you get seated on the second floor, you can enjoy amazing ocean views/sounds as you dine in. I highly recommend Mejewaki if you ever make it out to Seminyak; a must try for sure!

Pro Tip: When you travel to Southeast Asia, try to order fresh juices as much as possible. It is truly fresh, nothing like the fake fresh juices they sell in the US.

On another day, we visited the “famous” Potato Head (PH) Beach Club. Personally, I am not so sure what is special about this place except for the fact that it looks quite Instagrammable. The pool is way too crowded and the drinks are mediocre at best. I liked the drinks we had at Azul Beach Club much better – but then again, I did not order the same drinks at PH so it’s not a fair comparison. All in all, it’s a good place to visit for some laid-back vibes.

After PH, we took a taxi to Uluwatu and spent the rest of the day there. First, we went to a beach – Pantai Suluban Uluwatu Bali – before we went to the main temple to see a cultural Kecak dance. The beach was absolutely amazing; it was small, had stunning cave views, and apparently there was a whole other section of the beach. We did not find out about the other side of the beach until a local took us there but it was great. Once we left the beach, we went to the temple for the cultural dance and it offered really stunning views and the sunset was incredible. If you do make a day trip out of this, I would recommend arranging a taxi driver to stay/pick you up after the festivities as finding a taxi back to Seminyak after the show was a bit tough. Once we got back to Seminyak, we decided to try Motel Mexicola for dinner and the tacos were good. Instead of taking a taxi back to the hotel, I hopped on a motorbike afterwards (because you can’t come to Bali and not get on one) and thoroughly enjoyed the 15-minute ride back to the hotel.

The second part of our Bali trip was in Ubud, the northern part of Bali. This was probably one of my favorite spots out of the entire trip; we stayed at Alaya Resort Ubud and it was incredible! As part of our package, we had two 60-minute Balinese massage each, daily breakfast, complimentary 30 minute photoshoot session, and airport drop off. We spent most of our days in Ubud visiting temples, exploring the popular “Instagrammable” spots, and just enjoying the resort. To find a complete list of places to visit in Seminyak and Ubud, view the full itinerary here. One thing that Oumou and I felt was missing from our Bali experience was the lack of tour guides. All the places we visited had a lot of history but they rarely had signs or tour guides around to really explain the sights we were visiting. Although we spent a few days in Ubud, there are still places we didn’t get a chance to see – like the famous Gates of Heaven. It was a 3-hour ride (one way) from our hotel plus apparently you had to wait for about 2-3 hours just to take that shot and I didn’t feel like spending a whole day just to get that one shot. I definitely regret not taking the trip to get that famous IG shot because when next will I go to Bali? Anyway, Bali is still one of my favorite places to visit so definitely check it out if you ever get the chance. As always enjoy the pictures below!

Total cost of Indonesia trip:

Hotels: Seminyak – Hotel Indigo Bali Seminyak Beach: $804.16 and Ubud – Alaya Resort: $644.83

Flight from Singapore to Bali: Free – Used the United Excursionist Perk. 🙂

You can view detailed expenses from the trip here.

SB: The total cost in the attached spreadsheet does not reflect dollars changed to various currencies, some personal food costs, and souvenirs purchased.

 

Stay adventurous, dear friends, and always remember to stay golden. All ways, always.

Sincerely,

Samuella/Rich Auntie Sammie