I recently visited Bali for a short vacation. Bali is a beautiful place with wonderful landscape, warm people with a welcoming vibe. Here are some useful tips I thought I’d share if someone wanted to plan a trip on their own.
1. Bali works on cash
I had read a lot of blogs online about Balinese people preferring cash over cards. Initially, I had only planned to take my forex card. Luckily the travel company told me to ensure I carry some USD in cash for exchange.
Upon landing it was evident that CASH is king. I asked if my forex US dollars could be used to get cash, but the exchange did accept forex. I converted my USD notes to Balinese IDR
Forex as payment mode is accepted at certain places like restaurants/cafes. Some will levy an additional 2% charge on the total amount.
All shopping places run by locals operate only on cash. Therefore, ensure that you have a good enough amount of money available in cash.
2. Bargaining is real
In Bali, bargaining is done for almost everything. The only place I have ever bargained in India is for street shopping and that is all that I assumed I can bargain on.
I got a SIM card at the airport which cost about 250K IDR (which is about 1500INR) which I thought was okay. Later that evening, someone I knew got the same SIM card for 60K IDR after some bargaining. Could you imagine bargaining at an Airtel store here? :D
I decided to try the bargaining logic at a forex exchange. The rate offered on the signboard was 1 USD = 14,600 IDR. I asked the lady if she could give a better rate, to which she said that she can make it 14,650 IDR. I tried harder and got the rate bargained to 14,750 IDR. So bargaining also works at small exchanges too. I’d say just ask for a discount wherever you go.
My friend had told me a shopping trick, whatever price they ask for, start with 1/3rd price but never pay more than 50% of what they started with. This trick worked fairly okay for me.
3. Grab and Gojek are super cool
Grab and Gojek are 2 popular apps similar to Uber, Swiggy, Dmart etc. Both these apps offer ride services, food delivery services, grocery services (probably more but I that’s all I needed).
I always ended up ordering cabs and the wait time was always less than 5 minutes. It’s pretty neat how the apps have Balinese & English translations for chat with drivers. The apps have solo rides available too, I did not try it but I saw many solo riders on the street with their Grab bike drivers. Gojek was found to be cheaper that Grab most times.
Food ordering was similar to Swiggy/Zomato.
Note: I did all my transaction on these apps in cash. My forex (yet again) was not accepted on these. I am not sure about credit cards.
4. Beware of monkeys
We were visiting the Uluwatu temple and were warned about the presence of monkeys. Some important tips I learnt
- Keep your phones inside
- Keep your glasses inside
- Keep any food/water bottles inside the bag
Monkeys tend to snatch these things and only return it for food. In two different instances on the same evening, two of my friends had their glasses snatched, only to be returned after getting a banana from the temple official :) Earlier that evening, there were 3 other mobile snatching incidents. So this shit is real.
These were a few things that came to the top of my mind which might be of use to someone planning a trip in the future. Till then cheers and happy tripping!
