Travel Tips in BALI

What to Wear in Bali: Men’s Clothing

Take only clothes that are lightweight, easily rinsed, brushed, and renovated. In a tropical climate, cotton is very comfortable (nylon doesn’t breathe in the heat) and dries quickly in the humidity. However, 100% cotton needs ironing, so bring along a few half-cotton, half-synthetic (rayon is good), wrinkle-free garments for special occasions and visits to bureaucratic offices.

Denim is too hot for Indonesia and takes too long to dry; perhaps bring one pair if you’re going to do high-altitude trekking or cycling. Looser corduroys or light summer trousers are better suited for this climate. It’s generally considered inappropriate for men to wear short shorts for anything except the roughest manual work, long-distance cycling, hash runs, or for going to and from the bathroom or beach.

Bali is too hot for Western-style sport-coats. Buy a light batik sport-coat or an attractive long-sleeved batik shirt for dressing up quite acceptable and very chic in Indonesia. Choose patterned or dark-colored fabrics that won’t show wear or soil as quickly. Take along a light sweater or sweatshirt for the cool of the evenings or for higher elevations such as Kintamani and Bedugul.

These also serve as protection against sunburn and insects. Also take a water-resistant, wind-proof jacket. It packs light and keeps you warm when worn over a sweater. Keep in mind the temperature drops about 3° F for every 325 meters in elevation, and heavy cloud cover at Bali’s mountain climes can bring on an even a sharper fall in temperature.

Also recommended is a cloth baseball cap or khaki fisherman-style hat with a brim, deep enough to stay on your head in heavy winds, and to protect you from rain or the intensity of the sun. Don’t forget to spray it with water repellent. It may be frumpy looking, but it will do the job. A helmet is a life-saving investment for cyclists and motorcyclists; choose one with a plastic shield to protect your face from rain, sleet, and insects. Bring one with you; the ones available on Bali are dangerously flimsy.

What to Wear in Bali: Women’s Clothing

Women should take a few long-sleeved blouses and longish skirts. Skimpy clothing, backless dresses, and shorts can be offensive in Bali’s small back-road villages, on formal occasions, and particularly if worn in the island’s temples or to religious festivals. Your bikini is acceptable provided it’s worn only at the swimming pool or to the beach.

Take one wrinkle-proof dress that is easy to wash and dress up or down with. Dresses of double-knit cotton T-shirt material are excellent. If you prefer to complete your travel wardrobe on arrival, the clothes shops and boutiques of Kuta and Legian have a wide selection of contemporary and economically priced dresses, jackets, skirts, blouses, pants, and beachwear. Always closely scrutinize the quality of the fabric and workmanship.

As an alternative to possibly poorly sewn ready-made clothes, commission one of Bali’s hundreds of seamstresses to sew a dress (Rp15,000-30,000) or skirt (Rp7500-10,000). Your hotel or a clothes shop can recommend a dressmaker. Just give them one of your best-fitting garments or a photograph from which they will make a paper pattern.

If you lighten your hair, bring enough lightener with you to last your entire trip. Only black and a few brown shades can be found on Bali. Also bring deodorant and antiperspirant. The only decent products here are FA or Purol powder; the rest are ineffective

Short Travel Tips

Accommodations
As you can imagine there is an enormous variety of accommodation available in Bali. It varies from magnificent five star resorts to simple jungle cabins, depending on the location and your holiday budget.

Clothing
Light, airy, casual clothes are the most practical and you’ll find natural fibers like cotton or linen are the most comfortable in Bali’s often humid conditions. Waist sashes should be worn when visiting temples.

When packing, keep in mind that you will be in the tropics, but that it can get cold in the mountains. Generally, you will want to dress light and wear natural feathers that absorb perspiration. A heavy sweater is also a must, as is a sturdy pair of shoes. Suits and ties are almost never worn.

Currency
Indonesian currency is Rupiah. Rupiah notes currently in circulation are Rp.500, Rp.1,000, Rp.5,000, Rp.10,000, Rp.20,000, Rp.50,000 and Rp. 100,000

Driver’s License
If you wish to hire a car you must be over 18 years of age and posses an International Driver’s License or license from ASEAN countries.

Electricity
Most hotels use 220-240 volts AC, 50 cycles and a round, two-pronged-slim plug, but outlying areas may still use 110 volts. Bathroom shaver plugs usually have a transformer switch. We suggest taking an adaptor for your appliance.

Getting Around
You will find a range of chauffeur driven limousines, self-drive cars, taxis and hotel courtesy cars. Many taxis are not metered so it’s wise to negotiate the fare before you climb aboard. ‘Bemos’ are a unique form of transport. They are a mini-van masquerading as a communal bus.

You simply hail the driver and negotiate the fare that suits you both. Motorcycles can also be hired in many places but special care should be exercised at all times as road and traffic conditions can be somewhat hazardous in certain locations. Travelling around Bali is made all the easier because everywhere you go you’ll find friendly people only to happy to give you advice and directions on how to get where you want to go.

Ice
Ice is not made from boiled water. It comes from water frozen in government regulated factories. Locals who are adamant about drinking only boiled water are, in general, not fearful of the purity of ice. However we advise you are on the side of caution and forgot it.

Language
The national language of Indonesia is Bahasa Indonesia, although there are also over 250 native languages and dialects spoken throughout the archipelago. Now taught in every school and widely understood in Bali. The indigenous language of Bali is still spoken in the islands’ villages. Bahasa Indonesia is written in Roman script, has no tones and uses a fairly straightforward grammar, all of which makes it relatively easy for the visitor to get to grips with.

Keeping Your Cool
At government offices like immigration or police, talking loudly and forcefully doesn’t make things easier. Patience and politeness are virtues that open many doors in Indonesia. Good manners and dress are also to your advantage.

Accommodation Tips - part 1

Bali - which has more than half the hotels in all of Indonesia - offers the best and widest range of accommodation of any region of Indonesia catering to the international tourist. They are ranging from international five-star hotels with extravagant suites costing US$600 per day to simple, homey, family-run inns with a thin mattress for a bed and a single hanging light bulb for less than five dollars per night.

All these hotels have convention facilities, swimming pools, sports grounds and a selection of restaurants, bars, nightclubs, or discotheques and beachfronts. There are also smaller cottage style hotels with modern amenities. Most unique is the long established. Above hotels and those with two stars have air conditioning, attached baths, telephones and TV.

Elsewhere in Indonesia, someone is always inviting you home to meet his or her family. But this is not the case on Bali where accommodations are so cheap and plentiful. Families are not permitted to put you up as long as there’s a hotel or home-stay in the same village. At the low end of the price scale, Bali offers some of the best value accommodations in all of Asia.

There is a full range of accommodations to fit every budget-from lowly ‘losmen’ to five-star hotels. Hotel associations are cracking down on the heretofore-loose use of the term, and now won’t let just anyone call himself or herself a “hotel” without meeting certain standards. If the front desk clerk speaks English to you, and the tariff as well as all the prices in the hotel gift shop are given in dollars, you’re probably in a hotel. They’ll take either ‘rupiah’ or dollars at a bad rate.

In general, in the smaller, family-run home-stays of 10-15 rooms you come into more contact with the Balinese way of life than in the large, efficient yet impersonal hotel properties with their huge wings and tower blocks of rooms, run more like luxurious high-rise apartment buildings.

Among the 4,000 hotels on the island you’ll find Japanese hotels, Aussie hotels, five-star properties, bamboo and thatch hippie hotels, surfing hotels, dive ‘losmen’, hotels that cater to families, hotels that cater only to package tourists, hotels that cater to honeymooners and singles, hotels specifically designed for long-term stays.

You can even stay in a colonial-era hotel, the newly remodeled and modernized Natour Bali Hotel of Denpasar, which retains much of its distinct glamour and charm. Another historical art-deco relic, dating from the Sukarno era, is the grand old Bali Beach Hotel of Sanur.

Many hotels are using their money to build new units rather than repair the old, and Bali is so furiously building hotels in towns and villages all over the island now that at times it feels like you’re vacationing on a construction site. Building freezes are periodically announced, yet for unexplained reasons, they’re only partially enforced.

Arriving
At Denpasar airport there are accommodations service desks in both the domestic and international arrival lounges. These dispense excellent information and the staff will even call a hotel of your choice and order transportation, which is usually free, though you could end up paying for it. To the Four Seasons, it can cost Rp 40,000. Find out who pays before you commit.

As you emerge from either the domestic and international terminals at Bali’s airport, drivers or their assistants will be waiting there to escort guests to the hotel of their choice. They’ll be holding up hotel signs; if you have already decided to stay at a certain hotel, take advantage of the free ride.

Hotel touts are another excellent source of recommendations. When arriving at the airport, you’ll be approached by locals with offers of a room. These could be quite good, newly opened, and eager to please. If you’re approached by hotel reps, all competing for your patronage, this is an excellent time to ask for a discount. Many home-stay owners (like Pande in Peliatan) even meet overland travelers at Denpasar’s Kereneng Bus Station, though most (around 25) wait for travelers to arrive at Batubulan station.

Baggage Storage
Virtually any hotel, no matter what the class, will offer to store your luggage in special storage rooms while you’re traveling around Bali or to other islands of Indonesia. In lower-priced home-stays, the owner will even store your gear in the family quarters with the tacit understanding that you’ll stay there again upon your return

Accommodation Tips - part 2

Finding a Good Place
Other travelers are the best sources of information. The same person who tells you that a hotel, cottage, or home-stay in this book no longer exists will also be able to tell you where another good one is.

The local policies set the price of accommodations and are also charged with collecting the tax. With the intensity of competition, particularly among the budget class of accommodations, prices are very reasonable. But no matter what class place you’re staying in, bargain. Tell the manager or front desk clerk that the hotel is out of your budget (”Taripnya terlalu mahal untuk saya.”).

The manager might be amenable to giving you a discount “if you promise not to tell the other guests.”

If you intend to be in a particular area for awhile, the best is to just grab any halfway decent place for the night and spend an hour or so the next morning hunting for accommodations which better fit your tastes and budget. There’s a tremendous range in the quality and price of the rooms, in the variety of the services, furnishings, and amenities offered, and in locations. It’s incredible how different in atmosphere two hotels in the same price range can be, even hotels very close to each other like the Nelayan Village and Puri Buitan in Balina.

For a complete night’s sleep, don’t choose hotels near schools, bars, discos, or main streets. Also don’t stay in hotels where prostitutes or Indonesians stay. Ask what you’re going to get for breakfast; sometimes the breakfasts included in the price are really skimpy. It’s also important to determine if you’re going to be charged service and government tax, which can be as high as 21%! Make sure the place is clean, as your room may be frequented by other guests like cockroaches and rats.

The police are more likely to help you if you stay in a registered home-stay, hotel, or ‘losmen’. They have a reputation to protect. All ‘melati’ and ‘bintang’ class hotels are registered, but with unregistered hotels, sometimes your name and passport number will not be recorded. In the cheaper home-stays, always keep your valuables with the proprietor for safekeeping.

You can often tell the nationalities that frequent an accommodation by checking out its library to see what languages the books and magazines are written in. If you search around and find a hotel that suits you, take the room immediately, pay a day in advance, and get the key.

Seasons and Bookings
The low season is Jan.-June, when even Bali’s expensive hotels will give as much as 50% off. But during the high season (July, August, and December), accommodations are booked solid in all the main tourist areas and you’ll have to head for the hills to find a night’s lodging. During this time, hoteliers don’t need your business to survive, are not inclined to bargain, and charge 10-15% more. Lovina’s accommodations, for example, all increase by Rp 5000-10,000 during this time.

Make reservations ahead of time during such national religious holidays as ‘Lebaran’, the high tourist season and during Christmas and New Years. There’s a “shoulder season” (16 Sept.-9 Oct. and 16 Jan.-31 Jan.) when reservations are not as necessary but wise.

Don’t neglect to take full advantage of fax. Most moderately priced-and-up accommodations now have fax machines. It’s an easy matter to fax ahead and make all your bookings; you also eliminate any travel agent fees. If you’re in Java, Kuala Lumpur, Australia, or the U.S.A. you customarily receive a speedy reply from Bali within 48 hours.

Accommodations at Tourist Sites
Most travelers do not look upon actual tourist destinations as viable places to stay, but they can be. At night, after all the tourists have gone home, the tourist site is turned back over to the Balinese and it becomes a unique place to stay-a small, self-contained scene where you can really get to know the locals who run the shops and ‘warung’. Examples of these out-of-the-way sites which have accommodations are: Yeh Pulu, Tirtagangga, Pemuteran, the Amed area, Medewi, and to some extent Tanah Lot.

Don’t be afraid to follow a sign and venture down narrow back roads in search of places to stay. At the north end of Candidasa is a very elegant and comfortable hotel called Puri Bagus. It’s located at the end of a nondescript road that feels like it leads to nowhere. In Toyabungkah on the shores of Lake Batur you’ll find accommodations as low as Rp5000 s-some of the best deals on Bali-with breakfast, mountain view, and fewer hassles than tourist-trap Penelokan above the lake.

Hotels in Ubud, Denpasar, Bangli, and Klungkung are situated in the palaces (puri) of Brahmin families, with individual bale converted to Western tastes with full bathrooms, Western toilets, and front verandas. Charging between US$35 and US$60, these traditional-style hotels have great personality and charm. A tip: Don’t wait until too late in the day to arrive at popular places like Ahmed, Tulamben, and Padangbai as most of the best accommodations-no matter what the class-fill up by noontime. Get there as early as you can.

Also, don’t settle for low standards in high-priced accommodations. For example, the Bali Intan of Kuta is expensive, and everything’s got a surcharge-use of the telephones, room service, and taxes on drinks and meals. House movies never come on when they say they’re going to come on.

The rate of US$120 per night is simply not worth it. You would never pay this for a hotel back at home-for just a plain room, nothing special. Much better values are the so-called “Beach Inns,” “Home-stays,” “Cottages,” and “Bungalows” that are everywhere and five to 10 times cheaper.