Beautiful Bali and The Glorious Gili's

A smile, some confidence and a lot of balls go a long way!

What if I told you that while travelling around a country these three things are a must have? What if these things were all you need?

It will please some of you to know that I almost titled this article ‘Useless travel tips – Tammie is a sham’. However, I realised that the article would quite quickly be over before it started and many of my close friends would enjoy my failures too much. Now let me clarify, I didn’t ‘”fail” per-se; I just refer back to my previous article and unfortunately I didn’t get upgraded on my flight. On the way out to Bali (London Heathrow > Qatar > Dempasar) I had the same success that I received in my previous article - some very spacious seats and extra legroom. My own tips, however, did not work on the return journey. That being said, I was so tired it actually didn’t matter as I slept for pretty much the whole of both flights!

So I digress... lets get back to the important parts of my trip – what tips can I give you for Bali and The Gili Islands? There are a few important facts and tips that I think I can list quite quickly here, so lets get to the good bits:

1. Bali is busy and there are many “Grab” (Uber equivalent) drivers offering you transport. My advice here is finding someone who has been to Bali before and booking a personal driver through word of mouth. It’s a shit -show at the airport and it is much easier to know the price you are getting beforehand. For 200,000 IDR we got to Ubud! Have the confidence to pre book and do not listen to the prices being sold to you at the airport . I was advised that once you arrived at your destination these prices often doubled with the Grab drivers (message me if you want any information on the driver we used).

2. Motorbike hire is cheap and not as dangerous as you might think. We hired from our guesthouse in Ubud (Bramasa Ubud Guest House) for 70,000 IDR and petrol was silly cheap. We used the motorbike to travel to the Tibumana Waterfall and then continued down the coastline to Kuta for a body board in the sea. A lovely day out and nearly as cheap as grilled corn! Having confidence in your own driving here is important and a smile will help you to get cheap board hire on the beach. Walk around and don’t settle for the first one you ask (although they are all similarly priced).

3. Travelling to the Gili Islands: Now here is where the balls come into play. Our guesthouse informed us they could get us to Gili Trewangan for 500,000 IDR each - which we thought was a little pricey. We then failed to actually sort anything else out. The night before we were meant to leave we went online and searched for a way to get there and booked a transfer to the port, boat to the island and back, with transfer back to any destination in Bali for 550,000 IDR each. This was great and we certainly saw this as a success, however, we booked this at around 11pm at night and were picked up at 6:30am – so we certainly pushed it to the wire and we were lucky there was space, I think. Please note, when coming back from Gili Trawangan there are lots of drivers again trying to scam you out of your transfer tickets – be careful!

4. Gili Trawangan excursions: There is obviously lots of choice. Numerous snorkelling, day trips to the islands, snorkel hire, bike hire and diving trips here! Just a quick note here: This island is paradise and you can make your time here as quiet or as wild as you like (I went for a combination of the two and it was perfect!). We chose a snorkelling trip during the 4 days we spent on the Island. Now, welcome to the smile part of the trip.! With the snorkelling trip booking experience and also with everything we did on the island – a smile went a massive way. We also hired bikes and cycled the whole island and hired a snorkel and flippers for an afternoon! The Indonesian people are absolutely lovely and they appreciate your kindness and your custom. When booking our snorkelling trip we spent time speaking to many of the excursion desks. We asked what deals we could get for two people on the three island snorkel trip and managed to get booked on for almost half the price! Another good deal- this time thanks to some friendly conversations and smiles.

Although these 'tips' are important, my advice and favourite must do activities are listed below:

My favourite excursions from my tips above:

· Our day on the motorbike

· The snorkelling trip

· The day cycling Gili Trawangan

Other highlights of the trip which I think are a must do/must experience:

· The grilled street corn (with the spicy sauce)

· Going out in Gili Trawangan

· Dinner and cocktails at Egoiste Gili Trawangan

· The sunsets (free, beautiful and available in Gili Trawangan and Kuta, and I am sure many more places that I didn’t get to see)

· Traditional Indonesian street food (this is spicy af, watch out!)

· Finally, all you can eat and drink buffet at the Sky Garden Kuta (really just for the drinks, to set you up for the night ahead).

I hope this has been useful and I encourage others to comment and share any other tips they can add. I am certain that I have only scratched the surface in my week in Bali. My final and possibly most important tip – GO FOR LONGER THAN A WEEK! You will not regret it!

I am yet to book my next trip, but I have some ideas in the pipeline… for now… arrivederci!