June 20, 2018

A little taste of Bali

Chiara Di ASIA, TRAVEL Bali, Finns Beach Club, Kuta Street Food, Seminyak, Tanah Lot, Wanderlust 0 Comments

I’m the first to say I’m not a Bali person but I can finally see why it is a regular destination for so many Australians.

Although it was a work trip, it still felt like a holiday. We were blessed with perfect weather and had a few cool experiences on the itinerary with Buffalo Tours. Our stay focused on the Legian and Seminyak areas where we had a number of hotel inspections.

My favourite experience was the Kuta Street Eats tour. We were driven to Kuta Beach where we enjoyed a sunset beach walk and Bintan or coconut. We sat and waited for the sun to set getting approached by locals selling their jewellery, henna tattoos, sunglasses, prints and anything else you could think of.

Once the sun was down we met up with our scooter drivers from Go Jek (like Uber on a bike) and were taken by scooter to three different street food vendors. I said I would never get on a scooter in Bali and here I was forced to overcome my fears otherwise I was faced with FOMO. I found a driver that I felt looked experienced and responsible and made a beeline for him haha.

Our first stopped was Arung Pas where we enjoyed a fresh juice and tempe penyet, a soybean dish which was like a savoury biscuit with sides of chilli sauce, cabbage, cucumber and mint.

We then scooted off to another Kuta food stall and tried nasi jinggo which was white rice and spicy chicken noodles wrapped in a banana leaf. I made the mistake of mixing the rice with the noodles so I had no escape from the extra spicy sauce and could only stomach a few mouthfuls. I don’t mind a bit of spice, but that was extreme.

Our last stop was a BBQ-ed corn stall near the airport. It’s always a favourite of mine although I can’t eat it the way most people can so it doesn’t end up so enjoyable!

We went to Finns Beach Club in Canggu for the day. The beach club is on a 170m stretch of Canggu Beach, has a swim up bar plus five other bars, restaurant, towels, umbrellas and sun beds, changing rooms and shisha to order. We enjoyed cocktails on the sun beds, a meal in their restaurant and swim in the pool.

Last on the itinerary was the Tanah Lot Sunset Tour which included a visit to Alas Kedaton and Pura Taman Ayung temple, a monkey forest and ended with a sunset at Tanah Lot. I was petrified of the monkeys and stuck close to our female guide who tapped her stick to keep them away. One did steal our tour leaders head scarf but the lovely female guides got it back.

At Tanah Lot we walked around the site and viewed the temple from a distance. Other visitors were crossing the water to the temple to make a blessing. On low tide days it’s a much easier walk across the sand bank.

We went upstairs to the cafes overlooking the temple and enjoyed a Bintan and spring rolls as we watched the colours of the sky change and the sun set. There was a lot of cloud so not much sun to see.

We didn’t have much free time on this trip and with long days of site inspections and touring most of the group skipped on nights out. But my roommate and I ventured into Seminyak on our last night and went dancing at La Favela which had great music and cocktails so of course I will be back.

It was a fun, short getaway that came at the perfect time.

LWL xxx