Posted by Caitlin on Thursday, 1. October 1998 at 18:00 Bali Time:
We returned from Bali last Sunday - here is a quick overview of our experiences.
We booked 5 nights accommodation at Poppies Cottages in Kuta before we left Australia. Poppies is pretty pricey (I think it worked our at about AUS$120 per night/cottage through our package - still a fair bit less than their brochure rate) Poppies was beautiful and certainly very peaceful, which is a pretty amazing achievement for Kuta. As it is so small (about 30 cottages I think) you can't expect the kind of hotel front desk service you might get at big hotels, for instance they couldn't really offer us brochures or give us a lot of advice on here to go/what to do. The Cottages were lovely - thatched roof, open air bathroom, little sitting area and private porch (screened off by shrubbery). Very well maintained. The pool is small but lovely.
We've got over the going out to nightclubs faze (well, I don't know if I was ever in it) so to be honest there's not that much to do in Kuta. The shopping is terrific, but we wanted to leave our big purchases to the end of our trip. Though I thought I wasn't bad at bargaining it took me the whole two weeks to realise I didn't have to go up every time they went down. By the end of our trip I was offering a third of their asking price, going up twice then standing firm - even to the point of saying: "well, sorry" and walking out of the shop. They always called you back.
Everything that is said about the Hawkers is true - just ignore them and they'll basically leave you alone. My boyfriend who is much more friendly that me would look around when someone called out to him - and that instantly meant that that Hawker would latch on and not leave us alone. It might sound rude but the best technique I found was to just keep walking as if you hadn't heard anything. I sometimes shook my head or held up my hand in a gesture of refusal and that working 99% of the time.
After Kuta we moved on to Ubud and that was really where our holiday began. Just being in Ubud is an experience - cultural events happen around you all the time. On our first day we saw an amazing mass cremation. This was our first experience of the pressure selling/begging outside Kuta, which though far less frequent than in Kuta, was much worse. I have the theory that as there are so many tourists in Kuta they can easily switch their sales pitch to another if you act disinterested. At religious events and temples outside Kuta there were always women trying to sell you something and to be honest this was probably my biggest down side of Bali. In Ubud at the cremation we were engulfed in women trying to sell us sarongs (even tying them on you). Even after you bought one they still tried to sell you more. In this situation the only solution was to escape. Once the ceremony itself began things calmed down a bit.
From Ubud you can do almost everything - Here we met up with Wayan Purya who has been recommended on this forum in the past as a driver. As luck would have it his office Bali Tourist Service was just across the road from our hotel Artini 3. Wayan was the highlight of our trip. Wayan was gentle spoken and very calm. His English is good (though I have to admit having read the forum before I left I'd assumed Good English meant fluent - this is never the case - you're always going to have a few moments were you struggle to understand what is said/visa versa) Wayan has an older car (an old BMW - scares away the police) but his care in taking us around for a whole day (from 9am to 11pm at night!) was outstanding. He took us to out of the way places, including a cock fight! (His idea not ours - but it was actually very interesting)
I didn't get much of a chance to see the markets or shops at Ubud, but I have the feeling the quality of carvings, painting etc was better than you can find it Kuta.
On our last day in Ubud we went for half a days white water rafting. Absolutely magic! This was one of the highlights of the trip. Fairly pricey (the brochure price is US$68 but you can get it discounted at a lot of places) but a wonderful experience. The walk up and down the LONG flight of stairs at the start and finish were only just within my very unfit tolerance level, but the ride itself was exhilarating, not hard enough to make it scary, but enough rapids for some squeals and yells. The location is magical - you sail under little rope bridges, get dunked under waterfalls etc etc.
Oh, one last note about Ubud, if you're scared of dogs (As I ashamedly admit I am) don't walk around the streets at night - the place is swarming with not very friendly looking dogs. After one half hour walk in the dead of night searching for an open bar (with a Danish couple who were determined to keep on partying) we took rides on motorbikes to our hotel every night after that - after about 10pm you won't find any 4 wheel transport available.
After this we went to Amed for three nights. If you want action this is not the place to be. It is totally isolated, there are no shops, simply a string of tiny fishing villages. We stayed at Indra Udrahya (I think that was what it was called!?) - total luxury, but they were willing to discount the price significantly. The cottages were beautiful, very luxurious with king size beds, open air bathroom, marble veranda looking straight down onto the ocean. The pool and surrounds are beautiful, and the best restaurant I experienced in all of Bali. We largely just lazed around and relaxed here (not much else to do), chatted to the staff (all pretty cheesed off about being paid so badly - but very friendly), and we took a fishing boat out one afternoon to snorkel for 100,000rp.
Now to our worst experience in Bali - Bat Cave Temple. Outside the temple the instant you get out of your car you will be surrounded by women and small children demanding you buy seed necklaces for their school. They are very aggressive and will not leave you alone. They put necklaces around your neck saying for free, for good luck, but then of course demand money. We found this mass of people literally swamping us very upsetting - to the extent that once we got into the temple we couldn't concentrate on what the guide was telling us and just wanted to get out of there. This is really sad as if they were not so aggressive maybe they would be given more money. Our guide said he had told them in the past that they were driving tourists away, and indeed there were far less tourists here than other temples we visited. Wayan told us after wards that he normally did not bring tourists here for this reason (it was us that asked to go there)
Sorry - didn't mean to end on a down note. Overall our trip was great. I'd say if I went again (but I've got a lot more of the world left to explore yet), I'd leave Kuta to 2 days at the end for shopping, and focus on Ubud.