I recently holidayed in Bali for a few days. And I must say, I was HUGELY disappointed. Don't get me wrong, Bali has its beautiful spots. It has amazing temples, beautiful rice fields and fun monkey forests. But it was the other things that let me down. Like how narrow the roads are, how almost everyone is out to rip you off, and the mosquitoes! What really, really bothers me is that how the internet and travel bloggers have over-romanticized and over-glamorized the place. As a travel blogger, it's your responsibility to be honest in your travelogues and reviews. But when I was doing online research before my trip, NONE of the bad stuff was there. When I reached Bali I realized things were very different from what was shown on the world wide web. I was seriously annoyed. Which is why I promised myself that once I got back from holiday, I'd write a post telling the truth.
Here are my main complaints that I wish I knew about before going, so I could have done things better {or prepared for them in advance}:
2. There are a lot of tourists. Everywhere. Now when I see a beautiful shot on a travel blogger's website of an endless rice field, I'm thinking, "How the hell did she get that photo?". This article sums it up perfectly.
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| Tourists at Tanah Lot Temple. |
3. MOSQUITOES. They're everywhere. And since it's a hot, tropical island, you're usually in shorts and sleeveless tops. You get bitten. A lot.
4. Sellers want to rip you off. Case in point- I went to an agro-tourism plantation called Teba Sari Plantation. After a tour I got to sample lots of different types of teas {mangosteen, lemongrass, ginger, ginseng, etc.}, as well as different types of coffees. They tasted fanfrikkintastic. Before leaving, I was shown to the shop to buy their teas/coffees. I bought quite a few. All the teas said 'no sugar added'. After coming back to Bahrain I tried the teas and coffee only to realize that all the teas are 70% sugar, while the coffee is just normal filter coffee. In short, I got ripped off.
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| Tea and coffee sampling at Teba Sari. |
5. Filthy, unsafe Kuta Beach. I stayed at a hotel 5 minutes away from Kuta Beach because, duh, I wanted to relax on the beach. And even though I had done extensive research about this beach, nowhere does it say that this is a surfing beach only, not for relaxing. Many sites tell you that this is a surfer's hotspot and you can take surfing lessons, but none of them specify that this is NOT a beach to relax. You can't go into the water because the waves will knock you down. There were red flags put all along the beach forbidding swimmers as the current was too strong but surprisingly, no one cares. There are no lifeguards to stop you. And the beach is filthy. Every square inch of it was littered. {It's no surprise I haven't taken a single photo of the beach.}
6. You're charged for everything. Going to public bathrooms, you have to pay. Taking a shower at the public shower stalls at the beach, you have to pay. It gets really annoying.
Bali Belly. Ugh! I got Bali Belly on the second last day I was there. The food and water are not clean everywhere. Getting diarrhea while on holiday is really not pleasant.
7. Lastly, the roads! After looking at the map of Bali before travelling, I imagined big expanses of land and wide roads. But I was wrong. The roads are very narrow, with most places being just one way or two way. Roads in Kuta Beach, Seminyak, Legian, and many roads in Ubud are like this. I felt suffocated being in such narrow roads all the time.
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| View of Kuta Beach area from my hotel room. You can see how packed the place is. |
Stay posted for the next travel posts on Singapore and Bali.
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