Feb 15, 2008

Bali- An Indian Perspective

I recently went to Bali, Indonesia for a 4 day packaged tour. The trip was through Kuala Lampur. I plan to write a detailed travelogue later but some tips for Indians:

  • The currency is Indonesian Rupiah which is roughly $1=9000 Rupiah, Re 1 = 225 Rupiah.
  • The charges on the bills will be like 15.000 and has to be read as 15,000 rupiah
  • Though they have low denomination rupiah, practically no one use it in Bali. So a tip of 2000 rupiah may sound great from your perspective but is negligible there
  • In no time you will spend million rupiah.
  • It is a nice idea to spend some time with the local family to know how common Indian and Balinese culture are.
  • There are Indian restaurants. The one i went was called Gateway and had decent Dosa (Do not try the chutney and take sambar) and Vegetable biriyani (Some Chinese influence though). Vegetarians better carry some cup noodles!!
  • In order to enter temple you should wear white kurtha and white mundu/Dhoti. Plan to wear a trouser underneath the dhoti as the way they wear it is slightly different.
  • "Shuk suma" means thank you. Use this liberally.
  • Avoid wearing gold jewelery, though personally we didnt find any issue. We did not wear any gold ornaments.
  • Be careful when dealing with roadside vendors for goods, as there are cases of cheating.
Travelogue

We started at 12.30 PM from the Bangalore Airport. It was a Malaysian Airline flight. We got a seat in the middle row which was not the most comfortable one. The flight was better than the Air France i had flown for my Paris trip but still not as great as Domestic flights in India. As it was already night we slept quickly and woke up when the sun started peeping out in the orange hue. A beautiful morning to wake into.

We go down at Kuala Lampur Airport. The scale of this airport was colossal. The airport looked almost empty thought there quite a large number of aircraft landing and taking off. We took our time seeing the airport. The time here was 2.30 hrs ahead of IST. So changed the watches accordingly. We boarded the Malaysian flight to Denpasar Bali (The capital city of Bali) and landed at around 3PM local time in Bali. The visa on arrival process was smooth and we had the Jan's tour operator waiting for us in the lobby. He drove us straight to our Hotel.

Bali Dynasty, the hotel where we were put up was quite big one and had a good security system. This got me bit jittery about the safety aspect of the place. The Hotel was undergoing some repair, so they have shifted the reception to a smaller room. After the check-in procedure we were inside the room. A nice room with a small balcony.

Wait for the remaining part...