Bali! Where to start?! Another country that was hard to leave. We flew into Denpasar with Philippine airlines and arrived at midnight. We all had to complete visas on arrival at $30/each, I believe. I hired a private driver so he was waiting for us on arrival and took us to our resort in Ubud. FYI, it is pronounced "ooo-boo-d". For the longest time I was pronouncing it as "you-bud", lol.
WHERE WE STAYED
7 years ago I saw this Bali resort on social media with a floating breakfast. I saved said resort and 7 years later we got to stay here :) That resort was Adiwana Resort Jembawan.
And you can bet I got my floating breakfast! :)
PINK BIKINI
THINGS WE DID:
Prior to our trip, I told our tour guide everything we wanted to do. We also took some of their suggestions as well and included it into our itinerary.
UBUD MONKEY SANCTUARY
We started off with this. Since we got in really late the night prior we slept in and headed to the monkey forest after breast, around 1130.
The guidelines scared me a bit...... lol. The monkeys were a lot more friendly than the ones in Malaysia.
COFFEE PLANTATION
Local Bali coffee sampling. My favorite was the coconut coffee.
TAMAN DEDARI
This is a restaurant with these amazing statues. My food was not that great, but the views were :)
BALI SWING
The famous Bali swing! We got here early, and there was only 3 of us here. When we left the crowds were starting to come in. You can rent dresses here, just as I did. I don't remember the price though. For the swing, it is a package that must be purchased aka you can't just do the swing photo. There are about 30 photo props, and several swings, not even joking. I actually cut them off towards the end and said no more photos please lol. Again, there are staff who take your photos, videos, and will tell you how to pose. You can take your own photos with a camera as well but it was so much easier having someone else do it for me. The adrenaline was so good. Definitely do the swing if you have an opportunity. I am super ticklish so I will admit it does "tickle" while you're swinging, at first I screamed, lol. But none the less, it is an amazing feeling to experience as you're swinging.
WANAGIRI HIDDEN HILLS
Another photo prop stop. This was a quick 30 mins-one hour stop. Cute background for photos. Again, staff take your photos.
TEGENUNGAN WATERFALL
We stopped here to walk around and see the waterfall. Be warned, there are a TON of steep stairs you have to climb down and then all the way back up.
LOCAL SHOPPING
Me and the girls loved the bracelets they had here at all of the market stands. We collected a few. And of course the straw bags. There are also lots of braiding places around. We got Natalia's hair done pretty cheap which was her highlight of the trip.
GATES OF HEAVEN : LEMPUYANG TEMPLE
We left our resort around 5am and headed to the gates of heaven. We arrived at 6 am, and grabbed a number for the que for the famous gates photo, (we got number 151) and grabbed breakfast while we waited. There were even photo opportunity on the roof which we did after we finished eating. Our wait was about 2-3 hours. There are people who take your photos pretty much everywhere. They even have the mirror to create the illusion.
Important things to know: EVERYONE will need to wear a sarong. Regardless if your knees are covered, you still need to wear one, which will be provided at the entrance. Shoulders should be covered too, and you can borrow a cover for that too. Females also cannot enter the temple if they are on their periods. I was expecting my period literally ANY second (like I was having cramps and all) and I was terrified I would get it inside the temple so we just did the gates, not the temple, which was fine.
"NEXT POSE, NEXT POSE"....
There are signs everywhere saying to make sure you know your poses before you get up there. There are also ones that should be avoided, and those are on the signs too.
For the longest time I could not figure out how this photo was taken. I really thought there was water and always wondered how people went around to get this photo. Thanks to Tik Tok, I realized it was a mirror creating that illusion, lol. Each person in your party gets five photos so we got a good amount for us. The highlight of these photos was Natalia posing. I wish I would've gotten it on video but the photographer had my phone, lol.
TIRTA GANGAA
We stopped here after Gates of heaven to walk around and let the kids see the giant coy fish. We had lunch after here at a local Indonesian buffet.
On our last full day we had planned to head to Nusa Penida but decided last minute to cut it. We had been waking up early every day the entire two weeks of our vacation (we did Philippines and Bali on this trip) and had to leave the next day. So we let the kids choose something local to do, and that something was ATV riding. This was a lot of fun. You will be assigned a group of maybe 10 people per group, and two tour guides, one in front and one in the back. Ours in the front was amazing. He kept my phone and recorded so many videos and took so many pics of us for me. If you do this, bring a waterproof phone pouch for this, you'll be going around a waterfall and there's a lot of mud. They have some for sale there as well. This is also kid friendly. Our 3 year old rode with dad in the front, and our 12 year old rode with me.
For our last night, we had dinner at Cafe Lotus, and it was the best food we ate in Bali. There is also a live show that goes on while you eat.
AIRPORT DROP OFF
Said goodbye to our driver, Yuda. Yuda and his sister Dessy run a family tourism business. Their business is "Bali dreams tour and travel". You can find them on Facebook, instagram, and WhatsApp.
BALI FITS
Bali was amazing! I suggest spending at least ten days here. We only did five and I wish we could've stayed longer. I would have liked to see Nusa Penida after some rest, and a few other places off the coast and throughout the island.
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