Tips for Bali

Tips:

• Sunscreen will break the bank.
• It's 150,000 IDR (about $12 USD) per 100mg (~3 oz)
• Bring that stuff over in checked baggage if you have to. It'll save you money.
• You can live off $20/day ($10/night at a hostel that will give you free water, shower, and wif + $3/meal that will get you pretty full)
• But most places don't give you free water
• But you'll more likely spend at least $50 to $80/day even while on a budget because you have to:
• rent a surfboard everyday ($10/day)
• rent a scooter everyday ($5-ish/day)
• buy alcohol (infinite/day)
• buy sunscreen and this thing called Zinc, which is some sort of rub that you put on your skin to physically block the sun. You apply this after you apply sunscreen.
• Sunscreen, Zinc, Aloe Vera, are all 150,000 IDR per about 3 ounces.
• You can't fully explore and enjoy bali without a scooter
• Refrigeration rules don't seem to apply
• The $3 meals can be had at Warungs, where they cooked the food in batches and have them displayed in a non-refrigerated glass cabinet for the rest of the day
• You point at the things you want
• The food is usually not warm, so it's hard to guess how many hours they have been sitting there
• But if you're optimistic, you won't get diarrhea! (or else these shops won't exist)
• The picturesque waters and surf are in the south (that piece of land south of the airport)
• This piece of land is broken into 2 parts: Bukit peninsula (west part), and Nusa Dua (east part)
• In the Bukit Peninsula, you have Uluwatu, Padang padang, etc. Those are the waves on magazine covers. The water is clear and you can see the coral underneath you
• Nusa Dua includes beaches such as Pandawa
• North of the airport beaches such Kuta, Legian, Seminyak, and Cangu waters are all greenish and not clear, and most of the breaks are beach breaks, so direction of waves are hard to predict
• Avoid Kuta
• Kuta's main attraction is a sleazy street filled with bars and clubs and go-go dancers wearing heavy makeup
• Every few meters, you will get approached and peddled by locals offering you:
• taxi? (you say no)
• scooter? (you continue walking on, saying no, shaking your head)
• mushrooms? (he follows you and continue asking)
• massage? (you've stopped responding by now and continue to walk)
• girls? (he continues to ask)
• I'm not trying to blame the locals or peddlers. This is just a reality. The discrepancy between how wealthy the tourists are vs how impoverished the locals are is crazy
• I was haggling with one surf board rental shop, and it got to the point where I didn't want to rent from them because I wanted to see what my other options were first, but as I was walking away, he said, "but I'm hungry! We hungry. We need money. We need food.". He was slightly overweight, so I don't think he himself was starving. But I got the idea. He and his family needed money. But I just wanted to walk down the beach and see some other surfboard rental places, and I apologized as politely as I could, but as I continued walking away, he began cursing at me, and yelling "fuck you". This saddened me greatly.