We visited Bali in April 2018 for a few days only, but we managed to do quite lot and see a good chunk of the island.
So if you're planning a quick trip to Bali, you might find some of the tips below useful.

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You'll find many gates like this on Bali

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• Things to do and places to see on Bali

Go on a 1 day tour
This is a list of full day tours offered:

Of course the prices are much higher online, so only book them once you get there, most of the agencies there will offer the same tours.
We went on the North Bali Tour (240000 rp each). A small van came to pick us up at our hotel at 8 in the morning.
During this tour we visited Ulul Danu Beratan Temple at Bedugul, Git Git Waterfall, Lovina Beach, Banjar Hot Water spring, Twin Lake view (Lake Tamblingan and Lake Buyan). http://www.balifulldaytour.com/bali-full-day-tours.html

We chose this tour because we wanted to see Lovina Beach, although at the end we weren't too impressed with it because it was a black sand beach, but we did have a refreshing swim in it.

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We also had a nice lunch at the restaurant on the beach, it was also cheaper than in Ubud.

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We did some trekking around Git Git Waterfall, some people even swam in the very bottom of it, but the water was freezing cold so we didn't swim here.

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Ulul Danu Beratan Temple is a great spot to take pictures, walk around and be amazed at the beautiful architecture.
The gate to the temple

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The temple on the lake

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Banjar Hot Water spring is a great place to relax and soak your body in the hot mineral water.

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Twin Lake view is a great spot for pictures, it is quite cold there as its up in the mountains.

The two of us at one of the temples we visited on this day trip

We came back to the hotel from this day trip around 7pm.

Walk around in Ubud
Ubud is the cultural centre of Bali, a bustling city full of art and temples...the place to be if you want to explore the Balinese culture.
You will see so many interesting things just walking around Ubud centre, it's easy to spend the whole day walking around there without having a specific destination. There is amazing architecture everywhere around you…we were totally taken by it and didn't even realize when the day went by.

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A gate in front of a temple in Ubud

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Street art

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A temple in Ubud

Go to a traditional dance show
While visiting #Bali, Ubud Palace is a major attraction and that's where the traditional Balinese dance presentations happen. Many guys will approach you near Ubud Palace selling tickets for the presentation. You can buy from them and the tickets they sell are valid. Arrive half an hour before the scheduled time to get a good seat (otherwise you may have partial view or even to stand up). Mosquitoes are all over the place so bring anti-bug spray. Read the information in the entrance ticket, it will help you understand the performance which is based on the Mahabharata Hindu epic legend. The presentation lasts approximately 90 minutes.

Where to stay in Bali
We arrived at Denpasar airport very late at night so we booked a room right next to the airport at Chillin Kuta Homestay (£10/night). There was 24 hour reception and we didn't have difficulties getting in at 2am.
https://chillin-homestay.business.site/

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Our room here

The next day we went to #Ubud, where we stayed at Kabera Bungalows (£12 per night). We were satisfied with the room and the breakfast (included) was quite nice too. https://www.booking.com/hotel/id/kabera-bungalow-ubud.en-gb.html

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Our room in Kabera

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Our balcony

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Breakfast at Kabera:

Extra tips

• You can use Grab or Uber in Bali to move around, but only in some locations. Uber and Grab drivers are not allowed to enter Ubud, so they wont come to pick you up there and only a few of them will be willing to take you into Ubud. You will need to use proper taxis when going out of Ubud. With them you can haggle about the price and they might not even cost you more than an Uber.
• Be extra careful with your ATM cards and cash withdrawals
  We both used our Revolut ATM cards in Ubud to withdraw cash, and about a month after our visit there all the money was taken out of Peters account at the same ATM. They managed to clone his card and steal his money. After just a few hours they tried to withdraw money from my card too, but I had already blocked it by then. We managed to get the money back with the help of Revolut customer service luckily. We could have avoided this situation by using a unique function of our #Revolut cards, namely that you can block ATM withdrawals on it, and just allow them every time you want to use it to take out cash.

These are all the security settings you can change in an instant on your Revolut card:

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  There is not much you can do about this, just don't make too many plans for a day if you need to drive.
  Renting motorbikes on Bali is quite popular with tourists, but only do it if you are an experienced driver, traffic there is very different to what you'll see in Europe or the USA. They follow completely different rules (if any).Traffic in #Bali is a real pain, getting from A to B will take you at least an hour.

Places to eat
We had our first meal near the airport when we arrived at night. It was the cheapest meal we had on Bali, about £5 for the two of us.

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These were the food prices at that restaurant

In Ubud you'll find countless amazing places to have food at any time of the day, starting from Indonesian food to American, through Paleo and gluten free...but it's also more expensive than other not-so-touristy places in Bali. We paid about £10 on average for a meal for the two of us here.

We had lunch at Nomad, and is was really tasty, we can only recommend this place!
http://nomad-bali.com/

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Peter's meal at Nomad

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Veronika's meal at Nomad

Dinner at Dewa Warung just off the main street was also great, cheaper and simpler than Nomad.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g297701-d1182674-Reviews-Dewa_Warung-Ubud_Bali.html

But you'll find lots of cheap places with local foods if you wander off the main street.

Places we were planning to see but we didn't get to them:
The Golf Gate

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The swing over the Twin Lake view

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Tirta Gangga

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From Bali you can move on to some other amazing islands - the Gili's on the north or the Nusa's on the south.

There are 3 Gili islands to the north of Bali: Travangan, which is the biggest one, a full time party island, Gili Air, the middle one with a little bit of party and a lot of quiet places to chill, and Gili Meno, which is the smallest one, the best place if you're looking for tranquillity and piece. Everyone will find a place to their liking in the Gili's. We chose the middle one out of these three - Gili Air and we spend 4 amazing days there. Our next post will be about our stay there so keep an eye out for it!

Please don't forget to upvote and restsem our post if you enjoyed it!

We'd be honoured to take part in the project 1001 places to remember :)

#archisteem #placestoremember