We spent our first month in Indonesia on the islands of Bali and Lombok. As Americans, we can get a thirty-day visa exemption to visit Indonesia, but that cannot be extended. So, we are going to have to take in Indonesia one thirty-day bite at a time. Many people are surprised to learn that Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world with about 260 million people. The country consists of over 13,000 islands, so it will take a number of visits to fully explore the country.
We decided to spend our time on the island of Bali and nearby islands on our first visit. The best time to visit Bali weather wise is May through September, but high season is July and August where crowds and prices are the highest. We wanted to visit during good weather but before the peak of high season. We also wanted to use some of our hotel points for our stays and take advantage of some limited time promotional programs offered by Hilton to accumulate even more points.
Our visit to Bali has probably been the most touristy we have been in our two and a half years of retirement. The island of Bali is relatively small, about one fifth the size of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Today, the primary economic activity in Bali by far is tourism. Since the 1970’s visitors from nearby Australia has been where the most tourists are from. However, like many countries in SE Asia, Chinese tourists now claim top spot of visitors to Bali.
We hopped around a little bit making use of our hotel points and trying to sample the region in the 30 days we had there. Here is a brief rundown of where we went.
Kuta – one of the top sites for tourists. Kuta Beach is lined with surf shops, restaurants, and souvenir shops. It kind of reminds me of a California beach town – think Mission Beach, CA. I did go surfing for a couple of days and had a blast. We spent a total of five days here using points at the Hilton Garden Inn.
Surf’s up! It wasn’t very big surf, but still lots of fun.
Although Indonesia is home to the most Muslims of any country, the island of Bali is 80% Hindu. We happened to be visiting during the annual Galungan festival. These poles, called penjor, are placed in front of homes and businesses during the holiday.
Nusa Dua – the fancy schmancy tourist area in south Bali and home to high-end hotels such as the St Regis, Ritz Carlton, etc. We spent three days at the Conrad hotel chasing our hotel points and status with Hilton. This area reminds me of what a gated community in La Jolla, CA would be like.
Beachfront hotels like the Conrad pictured here, host many weddings. We saw quite a few weddings in progress during our two weeks or so in the Kuta and Nusa Dusa areas. This chapel hosts over 450 weddings per year.
Ubud – away from the ocean, Ubud is another tourist hotspot but caters more to the cultural aspects of Bali. It is filled with vegan restaurants, yoga studios, and art and souvenir stores. We used hotel points to stay five nights at the just opened Element by Westin hotel and made a day trip to climb up the Mt Batur volcano. We returned to Ubud for our last four days in Bali to take advantage of our hotel points at the Element and visit a couple of the places we didn’t see on our first five days there.
Rice fields outside our seventh-floor hotel room.
Mt Batur, one of the many volcanos in Bali, and the whole of Indonesia for that matter. Most popular is the sunrise trek. Due to time constraints and a reluctance to get up at 2:30 AM to make the hike up in time for sunrise, we opted for an afternoon hike.
One of the cool things we did in Ubud was to visit a bamboo factory and a development called the Green Village where eighteen high-end homes constructed mostly out of bamboo are located.
Amed – probably our favorite place in Indonesia so far. A sleepy little town along the beach in east Bali. We stayed three nights in a bungalow right on the beach and spent a couple of days snorkeling right outside our door. We saw many amazing fish, coral, etc.
On the way to Amed from Ubud, we visited the Klungkung Royal Palace, erected in 1710.
Water gardens feature prominently in many of the palaces and temples in Bali. This is at the Klungkung Royal Palace.
The water palace of Tirta Gangga was built in 1946 and is another beautiful site.
Our bungalow right on the beach in Amed. We spent three nights and snorkeled about 50 meters from our front door for two days.
The seas were nice and calm for our time in Amed. Snorkeling was very enjoyable and close.
Gili Air – there are three islands just off the coast of the island of Lombok that has traditionally been popular with the backpacking crowd. Motorized vehicles are banned, so you get around by foot, bicycle or horse cart. They are often referred to as the “Gili Islands.” The word Gili means small island in Sasak, the language spoken on the island of Lombok. So to say Gili Islands means “Island Islands,” technically not that accurate or useful. However, when tourists speak of the Gili Islands they are typically referring to three small islands off the coast of Lombok – Gili Trawangan is the largest and is also known as “Party Island” (we decided to stay away), Gili Meno is the smallest and least developed, Gili Air is said to be a mix of the peacefulness of Gili Meno with some of the amenities of Gili Trawangan. Gili Air still seemed pretty touristy to us. We stayed three nights at a bungalow on the beach and splurged and spent $50 to hire a boat to take us snorkeling to various locations. We saw four turtles that day as well as lots of fish and coral.
Transportation between Bali, Lombok and smaller islands is accomplished through a network of “fast boats.” This is the one we took from Amed to Gili Air.
There are no motorized vehicles allowed on Gili Air. To get around we walked most of the time, but since our hotel was on the other side of the island, we hired a horse and cart, or cidomo, to carry us and our luggage to and from the hotel upon arrival and departure.
We did enjoy some beautiful sunsets during our time on Gili Air. We were on the west side of the island and so would walk out to the beach every night at about 6:00 pm to enjoy the sunset.
Senggigi – Lombok is a less developed and less touristy island than Bali, we spent five nights at the Sheraton Senggigi resort on Lombok chasing points and hotel status. We hired a guide and driver to take us on a city tour one day and to hike to a couple of waterfalls another day. There are some very beautiful and uncrowded beaches. We rented a motor scooter for one day and had fun exploring beaches and temples and went to the nearby National Park for a short hike.
The Sukarara weaving village is an interesting place to visit, especially for Susan, who loves hand woven fabric.
I rarely do this, but I did allow them to dress me up as a “Lombok King.” The use of the clothing was free, but we did end up buying a number of pieces of fabric so I guess we paid for the photo indirectly.
On the coast of Lombok, there are many spectacular views of the beaches and mountains.
Our driver told us that we were fortunate to get a clear view of Mt Rinjani. Two and three-day treks up to the crater of this volcano are very popular and we may do this on a return trip.
There are many waterfalls in the north part of the island of Lombok. The Tiu Kelep waterfall can be reached fairly easily by a 45-minute hike.
The Pura Batu Bolong Hindu Temple is on the coast just a few kilometers south of our hotel. It was a holiday on the day we visited, so there were quite a few people making offerings that day.
Overall impression – we enjoyed our time in Bali and Lombok and will definitely be back at some point in time. The island is way more touristy than we prefer for our travels, however, we did have a good time and were able to explore a little bit and find some local places to eat and shop.
When we come back, we plan to spend more time on the north of Bali and outside of the main tourist areas on Lombok. From talking with the locals and repeat visitors, we now have a better idea of places to visit.
We stayed in major hotel chain locations for 24 of our 30 days in Bali and Lombok using some of the over 850,000 points we have in our hotel and airline accounts. See our post on our elite hotel status nomadic living strategy for details on why this is an economical and comfortable living strategy for our nomadic lifestyle. http://ournomadicexperience.com/elite-hotel-status-nomadic-living-strategy/
The Hilton Garden Inn in Kuta near the airport required only 5000 points per night during the time of our stay, the lowest points per night category of any Hilton hotel. The Element Hotel in Ubud is a category 1 Starwood property requiring only 2000 points per night for a weekend night and 3000 points per night on a weekday, the lowest number of points for reward stays in the Starwood Preferred Guest network. The Conrad by Hilton and the Sheraton hotels had some great rates that made it a better value for us to pay for our nights there rather than use points. We were upgraded to a one-bedroom suite at the Hilton Garden Inn, Conrad, and Sheraton due to our status with these hotel chains. The Element just opened a month before our visit and the one-bedroom suites had not been completed at the time of our visit or we may have been upgraded there as well.
I am sure that the rest of Indonesia will be quite different than Bali, but we enjoyed our time there and plan to return at some point in time to do some more exploring.
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