My Experience of Visiting Bali for A Week
My first time in the country as an Asian Aussie
Working both a full-time job and multiple side hustles can be taxing, which is why it’s always important to refresh. This is why I decided to take a trip to Bali for a week to wind down.
As it was my first time visiting Indonesia, I definitely found that it’s a great country for beginner visitors looking to visit Asia for the first time. Not only are locals friendly, but English is widely used, making it easy to hop around town.
Instead of going through some obvious things that everyone knows about Bali, I wanted to go through some unique thoughts and experiences that I personally discovered during my short stay in an incredible country.
If you’d like to check out one of my travel vlogs, check out one of them below!
Otherwise, let’s get into some of my thoughts about my week.
Orange Juice is non-existent
I’m going to start the article with something very random that I find amusing.
You expect that a tropical country should have decent orange juice. As someone who loves a fresh cup of juice, especially squeezed fresh, I thought this would be a no-brainer and easy to get in Bali.
Well, it proved to be a very unsuccessful journey for me.
I had tried almost ten different orange juices from markets and cafes to large restaurants and got nothing but tangerine/mandarin juice or orange concentrate with sugar.
Even with ‘juice bars’ that had literally fresh orange juice on the menu, I was given nothing remotely close to a fresh cup of juice. I found this slightly disappointing but also amusing and went into my fridge to pour myself some when I arrived back in Australia.
Grab and Gojek have everything
To give context, Grab and Gojek are the Uber’s of Indonesia. Grab originated from Malaysia and services the ASEAN region (South East Asia), while Gojek originated in Indonesia.
Whatever you use, what’s impressive about these apps is they literally have everything.
This includes:
- Food and Grocery Deliveries
- Ride Share services
- Insurance
- Health / Medical (e.g., Seeing a Doctor)
- Experiences
- Games and more
I was amazed to see so many services offered rather than the usual food and ridesharing capabilities that competitors like Uber and Lyft have. This makes it a one-stop shop instead of me needing to download five different applications. Very convenient indeed!
Bali is very Western-friendly
Although this might be expected with the number of expats in the area, I was more surprised at how well some of the locals could converse in English.
Most of the time, especially in the rideshares, the drivers had English good enough to converse with me for a solid 10–20 minutes. Having visited almost all of South-East Asia, besides Singapore, Bali must be the most English-friendly country I have visited.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t have an enjoyable experience in other countries, but it is nice to communicate to locals what you need or want clearly.
Additionally, Bali found a nice middle ground between having Western culture and influences while keeping a good amount of local culture in decor, food, and activities. I did stay in Ubud, which in my opinion, was less touristy than other areas like Kuta and had a good middle balance of everything.
You can plan both a relaxing and jam-packed itinerary
Bali is a location where you can have both a relaxing holiday full of massages, beaches, and food or one with a ton of hikes, walks, and water rafting.
For me personally, I just wanted a break from work, so I wanted a full-on relaxing itinerary. If you’re interested in what we did, I actually created a list here.
Otherwise, I still wanted to do a few things and not just lie on a beach for a whole week, so I still mixed in some walks (there are some REALLY lovely walks you can do in Bali). With this in mind, Bali is a place that can suit anyone’s interests.
Overall — a really lovely experience
Bali was pleasantly surprising for me. I expected a lot more Western influence due to the number of expats, but I found an excellent middle ground staying in Ubud.
I was still disappointed with the lack of orange juice, though!