If you’re anything like me, you’ve also been enchanted for years by photos of Bali’s verdant, terraced rice fields. As I set off on my seven-month honeymoon, I knew it was a destination that we would visit. But when we got there, we were dismayed by a reality that was completely divorced from what was in our heads. It’s possible to have a wonderful trip to the Island of the Gods and by the end of it, we did! But you’ll be able to save yourself time, money and disappointment if you don’t make this tourist mistake in Bali.
A major Bali tourist mistake
When we were planning our trip, we knew we wanted to go to Ubud, but also wanted to try out some other parts of the island. Because we were arriving from Tokyo on a long eight-hour flight, we wanted to stay somewhere a little close to the airport for the first nights.
As we had to work for a few days, we thought that a place with suitable infrastructure and strong internet would be a smart decision. We chose Canggu because we heard that it was heaven for digital nomads.
After an hour in the cab from the airport, we pulled into our hotel in Canggu. The hotel itself was comfortable enough, but the internet in our “nomad villa” didn’t work, a lizard drowned itself in our pool, we had a visit from a snake, the grounds staff sprayed pesticides all over when we had our door open, and a rope swing on our balcony decided to break while I was sitting on it.
When you ventured outside the hotel, the surrounding area felt like an Australian colony. There were swanky looking restaurants, cafes and nail shops as far as the eye could see. It was a week before I had a single Indonesian meal. Canggu is also a big surfer destination so you might think the beach would be a pleasant spot, but it’s quite dirty and the black sand adds to that feeling, even though it’s completely natural. There was nothing that felt Indonesian or Balinese about it and it seemed to cater to tourists who wanted all of the creature comforts of home down to the exact same foods and drinks that they eat in their own country. I don’t eat superfood salads or drink oat milk lattes at home and I sure as hell don’t want them in Bali either. That’s not why I travel.
The biggest tourist mistake we made in Bali? Basing ourselves in Canggu for a week. However, there were a couple of upsides to it. The sunsets at Pererenan Beach are incredible and one morning we saw a local family having a ceremony on the beach for a child’s three-month birthday. As with much of Bali, it was probably an enjoyable destination decades ago and totally overrun now.
How to use your time in Bali
Get out of the cities. It’s as simple as that. Ubud was fine – over run but a place that I was happy to check off our bucket list. But for our last week on the island, we stayed in an AirBnB in the middle of a working rice paddy just north of Tegalalang and this was far and away the best thing we did. It was so isolated that we went to the same restaurant (run by a guesthouse) every day for lunch and dinner for five days because there were no other options. The villagers were hard at work on a paper mache demon for Nyepi and our days were spent in our plunge pool watching kingfishers dive from the trees into the puddles of the rice field. It was a tropical paradise and I could have stayed there for a long time.
The bottom line
Unless you want to feel like you’ve never left home, you’ll need to go further afield than Canggu. Bali is a big island and there are tons of AirBnB or guesthouse options in the middle of nowhere. Go there, rent a motorbike and explore the quiet corners of the island. Don’t worry too much about finding restaurants or essentials – we were more than happy to visit the same place ten times and shops are never that hard to find. Bali is back to its pre-pandemic crowdedness and being able to avoid that will play a big role in enjoying your visit.