Heat, pray, love...

You'll sweat out every drop of liquid you've ever put in your body, and there were times when I really thought this country was trying to kill me, but...

Bali is awesome!! The culture, people, and scenery were so different from anything I had ever seen before. I'm sad we could only spend such a short amount of time there; I definitely plan on going back some day.

How we got there:

I booked my flight with Virgin through a company called travelgenio.com. We flew in on a Saturday and back to Sydney on Wednesday. The flight is about six hours and there is a three hour time change. The round trip ticket costed me A$470, which is actually a really good price. From prior research I found that normally a roundtrip would cost about A$700. It always pays to constantly check prices and try to keep your schedule as open as possible.

You'll fly into Denpasar Airport and you should book your transportation ahead of time. A friend of mine gave me a drivers card and we ended up using him the whole trip. His name is Gede (pronounced G'Day) and his email is gdebali666@gmail.com. Our airport pickup cost 100,000Rp (about A$10).

Where we stayed:

We flew into Denpasar late Saturday night so we just booked a nearby hotel in Kuta. Kuta is the touristy, nightlife centered area in Bali. We stayed at Bounty Hotel which I booked with agoda.com. It cost each of us A$24 (A$96 total) for a standard room for one night. They also gave us free dinner when we arrived and breakfast the next morning. It was clean an in a good location.

The next two nights we were in Ubud. Here we stayed at In Da Lodge. This cost A$6 per night and you just email them to book. The hostel seemed clean and was near the center of Ubud, but we are pretty sure that there were bed bugs because every day we woke up with more bites than we had the night before. Luckily we didn't bring bugs back to our dorms with us but I was uncomfortably itchy for a few days after getting back.

The last night we stayed at U Paasha Hotel in Seminyak. The total price of the room was A$150 with breakfast included. It was extremely nice and relaxing especially since we were used to hostels. We couldn't have afforded this for every night but it was pretty amazing to spoil ourselves on the last night.

What we did:

After we got dropped off at our hotel on the first night we had dinner, got ready, and went to Sky Garden, one of the biggest clubs in Kuta. If you decide to go here bring cash because there's a cover and they make you check your coat. The club is fun but it'll be like nothing else you've ever experienced. There's some terribly creepy men, but security will try to help keep them away from you, and all the locals will take pictures and videos with you - get ready for that! They had a ton of free drink specials when we went so that's a plus.

The next day was our tour of Ubud. We used Gede for this and it cost 500,000Rp total. A lot of people also do this on a motorbike that you can rent for the day, no license needed. The tour included a Balinese Dance (100,00Rp, not worth it), a temple (donation based, worth it), a Coffee Plantation (50,000Rp, worth it), a lunch stop (you buy lunch), a waterfall (free), the Monkey Forest (20,000Rp, worth it), and a Rice Terrace (donation based, worth it). You don't have to make every stop and can adjust the tour as needed. This pretty much took us the whole day, and when we were done he took us to In Da Lodge.

Pro-tip: If you feel like you've ventured off too far in the rice terraces, you probably have. Turn around before you fall into a rice paddy and have to get saved by a toothless Balinese man. If you don't you'll end up scaling waterfalls and sliding through mud in your super cute romper and sandals that were made for Uber, not hiking. Getting lot in the rice terraces later makes for a funny story... if you're lucky enough to make it out alive (I barely did). ;)

So after some hours trying to find our way back Gede dropped us off at our hostel. We planned the Mt. Batur Sunrise Hike for that next morning. We had dinner, showered, and went to bed. Gede picked us up at 3am so we could make it to the base by 4am. Here we met our tour guide. He had flashlights and breakfast for us. The hike takes about 1.5 hours and sunrise is around 6am. I would consider myself in shape, but I am just not an outdoorsy person. I found the hike brutal! It's all uphill and I swear the air gets a lot thinner as you go up. I was so happy to reach the top; the sunrise is really impressive. Definitely do this while you're in Bali. Our tour guide made us breakfast and we ate and watched the sunrise. Hiking down was just as hard because the rocks are slippery so you'll probably fall. The best advice I can give you here is to go with people who have the same attitude towards hiking as you. 2 people in my group were silent and worked their way up the volcano easily. I'm happy I had a friend who was struggling as much as I was! Our tour guide was barely sweating, and that was impressive. This excursion cost 400,000Rp each. I think you may be able to find cheaper.

When we got back from the hike I went to bed for a couple of hours. Then we had lunch and went to the Ubud markets. This day was pretty low key. We walked around Ubud and had dinner at a local restaurant. The hostel had a special at a club in town that night so we went to that.

The next day Gede came to pick us up and we went to Pura Ulun Danu Bratan Temple. Then he dropped us off in Seminyak. These things are actually really far apart so this cost us the same as the full day tour (500,00Rp).

That night in Seminyak we got dinner and accidentally fell asleep super early because everyone was exhausted. The next day we planned to go to the Potato Head Beach Club, but it was raining when we woke up do so we went to the spa next to our hotel. We spend the rest of the day at the pool before getting dinner and getting picked up for our flight. The airport transfer was 100,000Rp again.

We had a jam packed vacation to Bali. The only other big thing we didn't get to do is see Uluwatu, which I hear is incredible at sunset. It takes a while to get there, so make time for transportation in your schedule.