Finding Bali Roadtrip

Both Dave and I have been to Bali before. In my first visit I came full of anticipation after hearing tens of positive opinions of Bali, and how beautiful and spiritual it was. However, I left after about 10 days feeling oversold… I found Bali crowded, touristy, commercial and overrated. I left Bali and went to Lombok instead. But after 2 weeks on Lombok, I returned to Bali for a second chance. And decided to rent a car instead. For me, this changed everything. And the week I had driving around the island was one of the most memorable experiences from the whole 8 months backpacking. The freedom of having your own transport when travelling is truly wonderful. You can literally go wherever you want, stop whenever you want, play your own music. And the journey itself becomes an activity, especially if the roads are scenic and enjoyable to drive.

So I managed to convince Dave that we should rent a car for the next few days. We got a taxi from Permuteran to Ubud. Ubud is one of the main tourist centres of the island. Known as the culture capital of Bali, it is supposed to be more quiet and spiritual compared to the beaches and resorts of the south, but in my experience, I had found Ubud quite commercial too. The town is centred around tourism and everything there is influenced by it. But it does mean there are lots of amazing places to stay (at extremely affordable prices), lots of vegan restaurants (although very little actual Indonesian food) and great tourist infrastructure (including places to rent cars).

The road from Permuteran to Ubud is amazing, as it winds up and over the mountains around Munduk. I’d driven it before, and so I asked the driver to stop at a few places along the way, which we did at no extra cost. We stopped at the twin lakes viewpoint, and then Ulan Danu Beratan Temple.

The viewpoint was nice, however there were people with animals “for show” you could pay for photos with. Like huge fruit bats, iguanas, civets and pythons – just there for tourists to pose in photos with. Definitely not my cup of tea…

And then Ulan Danu Beratan… Don’t even get us started… I’d been here before and in 2014 it was one of my favourite temples on Bali. But it was SUPER commercial now, Dave said it felt like LegoLand. And I have to agree. It was just full of people taking photos of themselves. We couldn’t stand still anywhere for more than a minute without being asked to move because we were in someone else’s photo! And then there were cordoned off areas where you could only go or take a photo if you paid to dress in traditional Balinese clothes to take official pictures!! Crazy… The entrance fee of 75,000 each didn’t even include a free toilet visit… Plus last time, I was given a free sarong and sash to wear to be respectful of the site. This time, nobody seemed to care and there were people walking round in mini shorts and crop tops…. It felt like, as long as they got your money, they didn’t care… It didn’t feel like a temple at all… We left after just 15 minutes.

We continued to Ubud and checked into our place, Gek House, which was really lovely actually, on a back street of Ubud that was very peaceful.

We explored the town that afternoon, visiting the local palace, where we saw a sign for a traditional Kecap dance happening that evening. We bought tickets and then the ladies on desk said we could look round the palace if we wanted, and dressed us up in traditional clothes as a sign of respect.

After a bit of shopping, food and a nap in the room, we headed back to the palace for the show. It was pretty cool actually. Called “the power of voice” it was a dance of a Hindu Epic, Ramayana. It was a large group of men chanting rhythmic “cak” sounds in unison, over which there is a dance about the story of Sita and Rama.

So the next day, we arranged to collect our car and head out to see some of the Balinese countryside and hopefully experience a more authentic side of Bali.

But first… A stop at a vegan cafe for an obligatory beyond burger. We may as well make the most of the Western influence in Ubud, haha!!

We eventually got going and the first stop we went to was the Tegalalang rice terraces. I have had it pinned on my Google maps for a long time as many people have told me how beautiful it is here. But it was a complete and utter tourist trap with essentially fake (uncultivated) rice terraces, about 10 different “Bali swings” and shops, street sellers, restaurants, zip lines, selfie points… It felt like Disneyland rice terraces. And weirdly, ignoring all the commercial aspects, they weren’t any more special or beautiful than any other rice terraces I’d seen in Bali over the years…

After here we went to Tirta Empul Temple, a famous water temple which I also had missed previously. This I found a little conflicting. The temple was beautiful and I loved the history/spiritual story of it – its water from a natural volcanic spring (you can even see the source where it bubbles up) and it flows through spouts where you should bathe yourself in as a purification ritual. It’s been there since 962 AD and is a very spiritual place. They don’t restrict tourists from participating in the ritual, even if you’re not Hindu, and part of me would have loved to do it. But when we arrived there was a HUGE queue of tourists all lining up to do the ritual. And actually everyone there and in the queue was a tourist, not one local at all…

We liked the temple a lot, but it was super touristy, we couldn’t think of anything worse than standing in that queue for an hour. And although we would have both loved to do the purification and learn more about the ritual, we felt maybe it borders on the edge of cultural appropriation, especially for those in the queue doing it solely for social media – turning around for photos and having a friend video them… (Which sadly seemed to be a lot).

We continued on and headed up the slopes of Mount Agung towards Besakih temple. This was when the roads started getting more interesting, and the towns started to feel less influenced by tourism.

We settled for the night in a homestay near Besakih temple, so we could get there when it opened in the morning, and the next day (5th Oct) is the date of an important ceremony at Besakih which we thought would be interesting to see.

We got up early and headed up to Besakih temple. It would be my 3rd time here. It’s the most important temple in Bali, known as the mother temple, it’s on the slopes of Mount Agung, which is an active volcano, and there has been a temple here for 1300 years. It’s changed a lot since my first visit in 2014, and the experience we had this time was quite poor. We parked up, bought our entrance ticket (IDR 150,000 each) then got a little shuttle to the top with our assigned guide. When we hit the top people swarmed us immediately trying to get us to buy offerings, sarongs, drinks. One lady said to Dave, you “have” to take this offering or you can’t get in… I said that’s not true, I’d experienced this last time. Dave mentioned to our guide that locals trying to get money out of tourists at a holy site was shameful, and he almost immediately left us on our own, and told us to walk by ourselves. We think because he realised then that we would probably not be giving him a good tip. (In 2018 when I came here I did give our guide a tip and he laughed at me and asked for more…).

Still, it wasn’t all bad and I think we had a better time on our own than chaperoned and rushed by our guide the whole time. Plus, I knew all the sneaky paths through the temple (from my previous visits) and where all the best viewpoints were. So after that, we actually had a very enjoyable time on our own.

We continued our drive, and after Besakih, we drove through Sidemen and Bebandem regions, which are absolutely stunning. Amongst stunning rice terraces (real rice terraces this time) and quaint little villages. It seemed that all the local temples were also having a ceremony for ancestors and we got stuck in some ceremony traffic a couple of times, which was nice actually and food to be able to pull over and watch the processions.

We took a short stop in Sidemen town to visit a little organic farm and vegan cafe, which was nice and also had lovely views of the surrounding countryside.

We stopped many times – one of the perks of the freedom of self driving. Basically whenever we saw an amazing viewpoint or good photo spot. But we had to stop ourselves eventually, as literally every turn in the road there was an amazing view point… The journey took a lot longer!

We eventually got to our destination for the night, Amed, in east Bali. Known for it’s amazing diving and snorkelling. I really liked it last time I was here, but it seemed to have developed a lot since last time. I was trying to find a the viewpoint where I got this pic 10 years ago, and then realised that there was a huge beach club built on that site now…

In the morning we got up early and headed down to Jemeluk beach where we went snorkelling just off the beach. It was very good, very clear still water and lots of healthy corals and interesting fish.

After a shower and packing up we headed out again, and after enjoying the drive through Sidemen so much the previous day, we headed back there for the night. Taking our time and enjoying the roads. We stopped at the vegan organic farm again for lunch, and then finally made it to our accommodation for the night. We booked a nicer hotel this time, with an infinity pool looking out towards Agung, but last minute on booking.com (and off season rates etc) it was only £25 a night (£5 over budget) but we thought it was worth a treat as we are nearing the end of our trip…

We spent the evening chilling in the pool and watching mount Agung through the clouds before returning the car the next day and getting a taxi to the airport for a flight to Flores.

Both of us do love Bali. There is something special about this island. It’s religion is so unique and is very strong. You drive down the street and every house, like EVERY house, has it’s own temple and shrine. There are little offerings everywhere, and burning incense. And flowers, on the roads, along stairs, in people’s hair, behind their ears, or simply just in the trees. There are frangipani trees everywhere, and hibiscus and lotus. But as I said in my last post, unfortunately, it’s not just us who thinks so, and Bali is estimated to get around 7 million tourists this year, but has a population of only 4.3 million. It can get very crowded and it seems tourism has influenced a lot here, and not for the better… there were many times we just felt like walking ATMs. But fortunately there are still places which can feel authentic. We found that outside of the main tourist areas, our experience was much better, and getting our own car and exploring the roads and villages seems to be the only way to see the real Bali now. I just hope that no Instagram Influencers show this side of Bali, as seemingly most tourists here are just coming for the photoshoots, not for the culture….