There’s quite a lot of things to do in Bali but none that are particularly great. They’re all pretty run of the mill things like temples, a few photo spots, snorkelling and that type of thing. To be fair, Grobbler was only 2 yrs old so that kind of limits what you can do. Regardless, I’ve had better holidays when he was at the same age and there’s nothing to do in Bali that would make me go back time and time again.
Read my review on the Grand Nikko Bali Hotel and you’ll see why we ended up in a Three Bedroom President Pool Villa, which not surprisingly has a swimming pool the size of, and fit for a President. Even the Donald Gump would have been able to get his groove on in his Speedo’s in this pool (sorry to put that thought in your mind). So it then follows that we spent very little time looking for things to do in Bali and spent probably an inappropriate amount of time in our Villa, lazing around the pool, and experiencing how the other half live. This was also when I discovered GoPro (4 years ago), so a lot of time was spent doing somersaults, bombs, belly flops and other immature things while filming myself with this new found toy (which by the way, you shouldn’t buy and instead get the Sony FDR X300 Action Cam). When you discover a new toy such as this, there’s really no need to go looking for things to do in Bali!
Endless Immature Fun Discovering GoPro
The hotel has some activities (more on that in the Hotel Bali Resort review), but honestly we didn’t really get in the mix as far as that goes apart from a camel ride. Grobbler got a bit sick and attacked by mosquitoes and we ended up taking him to a hospital so that put a bit of a dampener on things too, at least for the first few days. The camel ride was ok, your kids will enjoy it, it’s basically a ride along the beach where you can see loads of rubbish and shit that’s washed up on shore. We did it twice so it can’t have been that bad and Grobbler thought it was pretty A-OK. That was probably one of the better things to do in Bali but the rubbish along the beach was a bit rank and the drool coming out of the camels mouths was a bit foul too!
One day we took a taxi over to Seminyak, went to the beach, encountered about 3,500 Aussies getting pissed and thinking they were absolutely the greatest thing since Richie McCaw, abruptly left the beach, walked around the town for 15 minutes, then buggered off back to our Three Bedroom President Pool Villa for some peace and quiet. Again, if you’re into partying and making a dick of yourself wearing flip flops, a tank top and board shorts, Seminyak could very well be the place for you. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the worst place in the world, but not really my scene. If you have kids, they’ll be fine in Seminyak and there’s plenty of other things to do there if you get creative.
Monkey Selfie
The next day we jumped in a taxi to the Ubud Monkey Forest. You can read more about that in Toucan’s Tips for Kids. If you can’t be assed clicking the link, and want the short version, basically it’s a shitload of monkeys waltzing around trying to knick your stuff. I’ve always been of the opinion that Monkeys are assholes, but it’s worth a visit if only for the fact to laugh at other dickheads trying to take selfies with the Monkey’s.
And that was really about it for a our Trip to Bali. We probably spent 80% of the time in our Villa and that part was actually quite good. There’s loads of things to do in Bali, for both grown ups and kids, but we haven’t found a single reason to go back there and it never enters my mind when I’m looking for places to go. Perhaps I’ll give it another some day. I know quite a few people who have Villa’s in Bali. I guess if you stayed there it’s be fine, but really, Thailand is much closer, the Thai’s are nicer, the food is better and it’s cheaper and I can’t for the life of my work out why you would prefer Bali to most of the beach resorts in Thailand.
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