Bali

[wineitup]

Going to Bali in June (for my job, not vacation). Any recommendations are appreciated.

[goldenticket]

Lucky you - my favorite place on earth. Do you know where on the island you will be staying?

This is a very dated recommendation (I was there in 2000), but I did have a very nice meal (or two) at a place called Ku De Ta, near Seminyak. At the time, it was a little gem in the middle of developing area near the Oberoi. It looks like the area is now built up, as is the restaurant. The Oberoi is beautiful and the food there was good, as I recall.

On a slightly more recent trip (2003), I had a delightful meal on the beach at Jimbaran Bay. There are lots of seafood restaurants there where you choose your fish as you walk in and it is prepared and served to you at a table on the sand. The atmosphere was casual and festive, with lights strung up and a band playing.

[qwertyy]

I'm headed here in about a month, probably a few days in Seminyak, with maybe a night or two in Ubud. Can anyone tell me anything about the food style here? I know a bit about Indonesian food, but if there are any specific, uber-local specialities to keep my eyes out for (like Cambodia's fish amok), I'd love to hear about them. Thanks!

[Joshua Grinnell]

Two years ago, in Ubud for our honeymoon, we enjoyed The Dirty Duck (Bebek Bengil). It seems to be getting mixed reviews of late, but it has a lovely setting out in a rice paddy and specializes in fried duck (thought it was a little dry), but the smoked duck was quite good.

[goldenticket]

I'm headed here in about a month, probably a few days in Seminyak, with maybe a night or two in Ubud. Can anyone tell me anything about the food style here? I know a bit about Indonesian food, but if there are any specific, uber-local specialities to keep my eyes out for (like Cambodia's fish amok), I'd love to hear about them. Thanks!

The thing that sticks out the most in my mind are the wonderful tropical fruits that we just about never see here: mangosteen, snake fruit (salak), rambutan, and others. Nasi goreng (and variations) is the only dish that I specifically remember, but I wasn't as interested in all things 'foodie' back then. But that fruit...sigh....

[qwertyy]

I now understand why people find it so hard to provide specific recommendations on Bali: because everything fades into a spectacular haze of sun, sea, bright green flora, and stunning beauty.

On Seminyak we stayed at Villa Kubu, the nicest place I've ever stayed before, and possibly the nicest place I will ever stay again, in my life. The daily breakfast (cooked in the villa, choice of American [eggs, toast, and meat] or Asian [nasi goreng or mee goreng]) was lovely, and the room service was pretty damn good--honestly, maybe the best chicken quesadilla I've ever had, below average rendang, excellent curry.

Otherwise, Seminyak was just okay. Made's Warung ('warung' is basically any local place where they sell stuff--retail shop, restaurant) is recommended by everyone, mostly because it's a tourist joint with dance shows. The food was good for a tourist joint, though the prices were pretty high. Gado gado is one of my all-time favorite dishes, and I was psyched to try it in Indonesia for the first time. Everywhere you eat it it's prepared differently, and here it's almost a stir fly, but it's pretty darn good. The waitress tried to warn us off the pepesan ikan, saying that it was a traditional Balinese dish, and even as a traditional Balinese lady she didn't like it, but my dining companion insisted. It was essentially a tuna pate/meatloaf, steaned in banana leaves, served with coconut vegetables and rice. And it was SPECTACULAR. The spicy-sweet-starchy interplay was fantastic, and our waitress was decidedly surprised how much we loved it (if not exactly impressed). We also got the cap cay, which was a semi-dull veggie stir fry.

The location of Cafe Seminyak can't be beat, as it is right next to the grocery store. And it's mostly outdoor and makes for great people watching, but don't eat next to the street unless you want your meal constantly interrupted by shills. Here, the gado gado is served WIERD: with all the ingredients rolled tight in lettuce leaves like a summer roll, with a drizzle of the peanut sauce on top and the eggs and shrimp chips on the side. Still, yummy.

It was in Ubud where we found the meal of the island: Murni's Warung. I've had a lot of bad luck choosing restaurants abroad lately, and got pretty nervous when assigned to pick for my one night in Ubud. But oh mama, this place was off the charts. First, ask to sit downstairs. The restaurant goes down four flights, including the bar and a private room. The bottom flight is the best restaurant seating, with a shrine overseeing the small deck, which hangs on a cliff over the river that you can hear rushing below you during the pitch dark. By far, one of the best dishes I've ever had (EVER) (EVER, EVER, EVER) was Tuti's Tutu Ayam, chicken braised for eight hours in "Balinese spices" and served with spiced vegetables. This thing was just off the charts. Despite my repeated (charming!) requests, I could get nothing from the waitress about the recipe and had to resign myself to dreaming about this chicken for the Rest. Of. My. Life. No joke. The gado gado was the next best dish, and the 'award-winning' fish ended third, probably only because the chicken and gado gado were so damn good. Dining as I was with expats, they insisted on getting 'grandma's apple pie' for dessert, and damn if it wasn't a really freaking excellent and delicious rendition--no holding back on the clove and cardomom here. Really, I can't recommend this place more highly. It's a bit of a walk out of town, and it's got a bit of touristy to it (not one but TWO gift shops), but the food is just out of this world.

A few other things I learned:

Mind the fruit. You'll find the pineapples at the grocery stores to be quite small. Consequently, I also found every piece of pineapple I ate to be dull and immature. Same with the watermelon. But the star fruit was the best fruit I've ever eaten, and the papaya was playing above grade.

DO NOT DRINK BALINESE WINE. I cannot possibly stress this enough. Wine is really, really expensive in Bali, but no matter how much you're trying to penny-pinch because you've spent too much on your villa, don't drink Balinese wine. Just DON'T. If you must go cheap and your companion won't drink beer, just drink the Balinese rice wine. Yes, it tastes like MD 2020, but it still tastes better than the wine, and is cheaper.

Drink the beer! Bintang is a fine yellow beer--the same yellow beer (as I've posted in several threads) that exists in every tropical country. But take the extra effort to seek out Bali Storm. It's surprising to find a beer this well crafted in a tropical, remote locale, but they've done a really good job. We tried the Golden Ale and the Pale Ale and were impressed by both.

Air Asia sucks. That is all.

[wineitup]

Going to Bali in June (for my job, not vacation). Any recommendations are appreciated.

Well I'm back from Bali. My meetings were in Kuta, which as you know if you've been there is the main tourist spot. Nothing food wise really stuck out at the restaurants. The best meal we had was at an Italian restaurant called Rosso Vivo. The "Indonesian" cuisine was toned down tourist grade. Had some pretty good Indian food at a restaurant called "Queens" and a fairly good burger at the poolside bar at our hotel. Agree with the above poster that the fruit was awesome. Our hotel had a gigantic breakfast buffet that included pretty much every kind of breakfast food from every part of the world. The fruit display was huge and i tried everything they had there. Really like the jack fruit. Also became addicted to Guava juice while I was there.

[Mark Dedrick]

My wife and I loved Bali on the whole. Absolute paradise. We ended up spending two nights in Ubud with a group of friends, and then three nights in Seminyak by ourselves. Both were wonderful, and I’m glad we were able to experience both the mountains and the beach (and to a much lesser extent Jimbaran). Ubud was far more relaxing and peaceful, Seminyak is very much a tourist beach town (with a gorgeous beach), although not nearly as crazy or cheesy as Kuta.

Ubud

Lodging – In Ubud we rented a villa, Omah Padi, which was just outside of town (you could walk it if you wanted). It is an absolutely stunning place, five bedrooms, plus an outdoor living space and a pool, surrounded by rice paddies. You felt like there were no other tourists around at all. If you’re going with a group I’d strongly recommend it. The villa comes with staff, breakfast is included, and there’s a driver on site (you have to pay him for trips, but it’s quite inexpensive). 

Transportation – Basically you can walk or you can find a guy with a “Taxi” sign hanging out on the side of the road. You’ll flag one of these guys down and then start a negotiating process. If you’re traveling basically within the Ubud area you’re probably looking at 40,000-50,000 rupiah, but that will absolutely not be their opening offer. I had drivers start me out as high as 200,000 (I walked away even as he eventually got down to 50,000 just on principle alone) and as low as 75,000.

Sights – One of our days in Ubud we took and afternoon, and our villa’s driver, on a tour of the countryside and a bunch of Hindu temples. We saw Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave), Gunung Kawi and Tirta Empul. These are all temples that are currently being used, and it was very cool to see them. If you don’t have a sarong at these sites one will be provided for you.

Seminyak

Lodging – We stayed at the Luna2 Studiotel, which is right on the beach in Seminyak. We were big fans of this hotel. It’s small, 14 rooms in total, and I believe only two or three other rooms were occupied during our stay. The room was also huge, incredibly spacious, and came with a nice sized balcony as well. The pool was seldom used and lovely, a very good breakfast was included with the room, and the staff was super friendly. I found the décor fantastic, but I could see it turning some people off. I read it described somewhere as what would happen if you went back to the 1960s and asked a designer to design the hotel of the future. It felt very Austin Powers-like.

The hotel also had a wonderful rooftop bar, which was great for watching the sunset, and their cocktail program is really good. And since only people staying at the hotel can use it, it was never crowded. The hotel doesn’t have their own beach chairs, but you can borrow towels from the hotel and rest beach chairs for a pretty nominal price. And it’s a really nice beach. 

Transportation – Walking or cabs. From our hotel we could walk into downtown Seminyak, and to shopping bars and restaurants. We took cabs to dinner, however, as it was quite hot, and cabs aren’t that expensive. When leaving a restaurant, however, be careful that the cab doesn’t overcharge you. We fell into this trap one night, and ended up spending 100,000 for what should have been about a 30,000 trip. You need to ask the cabbie if the trip will be metered or not. When leaving dinner at Sardine we had actually started climbing into the cab when I asked him that question to which he responded “There are no meters out here boss”. I asked him the cost and he then quoted me 100,000. It was 30,000 to get there. We got out and immediately hailed another cab.

[Mark Dedrick]

Ubud Food

Mozaic – By acclimation, the best restaurant in Ubud is either Locavore or Mozaic. We had dinner at Mozaic our first night in town. It’s great. The outdoor dining room is delightful, and everything we had to eat was very good. For some reason I don’t have as many specific recollections of dishes, but  we very much enjoyed it. One thing they do is to bring out a big basket of fruits and vegetables, and they’ll then explain to you what they’re using in each dish as they bring it around. It was a good way to share with us some of the unique ingredients that are used in Indonesian cuisine.

Naughty Nuri’s Warung – Loved this place. They’re known for ribs and martinis, which sounded like an odd combination to me, but worked fantastic in practice. The ribs are excellent, the short ribs were absolutely incredible, and the sambal that comes with the short ribs, or that you can order on its own, is good enough that I’d eat it by itself. The martinis were far better than they needed to be. 

Hujan Locale – This is an Indonesian restaurant in downtown Ubud. We ate there with a large group, about ten people. We got a huge sampling of the menu, and the food was very good. That’s about as much detail as I can go into, but I’d happily go back.

Jimbaran Seafood – Rome – Sunday night seafood on the beach is a big deal in Jimbaran, which is just south of the airport. There’s a group of warungs along the beach. You pick your restaurant (in our case based on how good and fresh the seafood looked), pick out your seafood (we went with prawns done two ways, clams, red snapper, crab and squid) and they then grill it over coconut husks. You then walk through the very smoky restaurant interior out to the beach and grab a table and wait for them to deliver your seafood. You can order drinks while you wait (or just bring your own and open it there), and can also order grilled corn with a chili rub from the many vendors on the beach as an appetizer. It’s a wonderful experience. Eating incredible fresh seafood on the beach is just fantastic. 

Seminyak Food

Warung Babi Guling Pak Malen – Babi Guling is Balinese roast suckling pig. The more famous place is Ibu Oka, which is in Ubud, and has been featured on Anthony Bourdain's show. My friends insist that it has really fallen off recently, and as a result we didn't go there. This place was delicious, and basically pig seven or eight ways (pork soup, satay, roast pork, crispy pork skin, fried crackling, and some other preps I can’t remember) served over rice with a spiced long bean salad. It’s really delicious, and absurdly cheap (less than $2 US per person). It seemed to be frequented exclusively by locals.  

Warung D’Sawah – Their specialty is a crispy fried duck, which is what we had. Like with the babi guling, you get a soup, a satay, a long bean salad, rice, and then your protein. It was absolutely delicious. The setting is also gorgeous. You enter, and then step directly back into a lovely garden patio overlooking rice patties. I’d happy go back. 

Revolver Espresso – Good, extremely trendy looking coffee spot. 

Mamasan – This place came very highly recommended to us, and we definitely enjoyed it. It’s an extremely cool space, and really the only criticism I can find is that you could easily drop this exact restaurant into New York or Miami and it would be right at home. Very good pan-Asian food. 

Sardine – This was our favorite meal in all of Bali. It’s a beautiful outdoor dining room, right on the edge of a field of sunflowers, and all of the plates were absolutely beautiful. My pan roasted Hamachi was fantastic. 

Sisterfields – We had brunch here on our first day. It’s a very nice brunch spot, good drinks and coffee, and filled with tourists. Still delicious and worth going.

Ku De Ta – This is apparently a “famous” place, and it does have a Miami club kind of vibe to it. We had a drink here in the middle of the day, and it was a pretty relaxed scene at that point.

Boss Man – My friend describes this place as having the best burgers in Indonesia, and he was really craving a burger, so we ended up here before our drive up to Ubud. It was a very good burger.

[Mark Dedrick]

Oh, and a quick thought on Balinese wine. We actually drank Balinese wine a number of times on this trip and found it, on the whole, fine, and at times delicious. Given that it typically was 2/3 the price of French or Australian wine, we frequently went with it. 

[ktmoomau]

So did you go to Singapore, then onto Bali?

[Mark Dedrick]

Singapore --> Jakarta --> Bali --> Yogyakarta --> Singapore

It was a pretty awesome trip, we had a great time. 

[Simul Parikh]

I went to Pak Malen! A driver took us to it, and agree that it was very tasty. Sisterfields - great, too - but I took a video and sent to friends - "Am I in Logan's Circle or am in Bali?" - can't tell by clientale. But it was a good break from noodles and crispy baby pig.

Sounds like a once in a life time trip!

[Mark Dedrick]

Agree 100% on Sisterfields. My friends, who live in Jakarta, wanted to go, and it was delicious, but could have easily been in DC. Which I'm sure is exactly why they wanted to go there. 

The clientele at Pak Malen was slightly different.  

[ktmoomau]

Well my Mom got her wish due to a fair sale on Emirates!  Plus since Simul and Mark have been to Bali, so I had to catch up.  So in May we are heading to Bali by way of Dubai, with a couple days in Dubai, and nine days in Bali.  Still need to book where we will stay.

[Mark Dedrick]

Nice, that's very exciting. We really loved Bali when we were there, and I'd definitely recommend staying in at least two different areas. Ubud and Seminyak, for example, are extremely different from one another. And the seafood dinner on the beach in Jimbaran was one of my favorite experiences from the entire trip. I'd definitely do that. 

[DonRocks]

Juanita Hall's "Spock":

[silentbob]

On 9/7/2016 at 4:30 PM, Mark Dedrick said:

Jimbaran Seafood – Rome – Sunday night seafood on the beach is a big deal in Jimbaran, which is just south of the airport. There’s a group of warungs along the beach. You pick your restaurant (in our case based on how good and fresh the seafood looked), pick out your seafood (we went with prawns done two ways, clams, red snapper, crab and squid) and they then grill it over coconut husks. You then walk through the very smoky restaurant interior out to the beach and grab a table and wait for them to deliver your seafood. You can order drinks while you wait (or just bring your own and open it there), and can also order grilled corn with a chili rub from the many vendors on the beach as an appetizer. It’s a wonderful experience. Eating incredible fresh seafood on the beach is just fantastic.

We just spent 10 days in Bali (erin79 had a work conference, I was "on vacation" with our kids), not many opportunities to dine out but we did do this one night, went to Made Bagus a few doors down from Rome and got one of the 350,000 rupiah (around $30 after tax) set meals that included a grilled red snapper, prawns, clams, squid satay, vegetables, rice, and two drinks.  Nothing earth-shattering but everything was tasty, especially the sauces that came with the seafood.  Great view of the sunset from beach-side.  And thanks for the warning about smoke -- we chose our clothes appropriately!

[ktmoomau]

Trip Report from Bali:

Ubud- we flew into Bali and went to Ubud first.  We had a really nice driver for the whole trip, who was  a friend of a friend's his name is Ida Bagus Adi (Adi is what we called him).  He is ridiculously inexpensive compared to some of the taxis and hotel tours, and despite apologizing for his poor English, his English is actually very good.  He is on What'sApp and Facebook, and WhatsApp is the easiest way to hook up with him.  I would message him the day before with what we might need, then I would message him 30 minutes before we needed picked up.  We stayed at the Puri Sunia Resort which is about 3 miles outside Ubud.  I wouldn't choose this hotel if you want to walk into Ubud, but it was a phenomenal hotel which was really peaceful.  The hotel room itself was beautiful, very clean, nicely appointed.  The staff at the hotel were amazing and incredibly nice.  The spa was very nice and incredibly affordable.  They have a nice selection of tours if you want to go through the hotel, a bit more expensive than a private driver, but not too bad, we did this for one day Adi was booked.  Our included breakfast was huge, delicious and had lots of variety (Indonesian, Indian, Continental, American, etc available) it was three courses with a fruit course, bread or starter sweet course and then meal.  Sample menus we had were fruit platter, fried banana with honey and mie goreng or fruit with yogurt, breads, poached eggs with bacon, sausage, mushroom, grilled tomato and potato, etc, etc.  The pools were small, but nice, and they had a lot of free amenities such as morning yoga, bike rides, tea, making offerings, etc.  We got the hotel for under $100 a night, and thought it was an amazing bargain.  They have a frequent shuttle into and out of Ubud, as well.  We had dinner there a couple nights just due to tours ending and being too jet lagged to go anywhere, there was no additional charge for room service.  Dinners were good, I had chicken curry, Mom had roasted duck with Indonesian spices, spring rolls were good. The only thing about our hotel we didn't like was: the wifi wasn't incredibly strong, I used my own device a lot,  the light switches were in very weird places, we had to finally have staff show us where they were, we never could get the TV to play tv channels, although they had a list of them, the shower was hard to get the temperature not to be too hot or too cold or both too hot and too cold in the same shower.

In Ubud itself, Mom and I had a great time shopping.  We got a little overwhelmed with the market, we don't love to haggle, but you do get the best deals here for things that you will see in other shops.  We got snakeskin purses, sarongs, scarfs and other presents for people for Christmas and lots of clothes in Ubud.  They have pretty wood carvings and artwork, but we just couldn't commit to any of that.  I wish I would have bought some Balinese puppets for Mom, she really liked them.    Other than shopping there are a couple art museums- we toured the historic one right in town and the Blanco museum, which if you like eclectic things you definitely need to check out.

We really enjoyed drinks and dinner at Bridges by the Blanco museum.  Dinner wasn't special per se in terms of flavor, the food was good though and more reasonably priced than I thought it would be.  The drinks were very good though and the restaurant is pretty with a very nice view.  Our favorite restaurant was Arang Sate Bar which is right by the market in Ubud.  Most items here are sate items.  We had incredible butterfish and mushroom skewers, as well as pork belly and other items.  We did two tasting menus, the seafood and meat and shared them.  We also had two spritzer's here that were just incredibly refreshing.  Lastly, we had a desert called Es Teler, which was just incredible- coconut sorbet, coconut cream, and tropical fruit.  Mom and I have said this might be the best dessert we have ever eaten, it was amazing, I hope to find someone making this somewhere here.  We ate at a couple other restaurants, I just don't have their names, there are lots of decent restaurants in Ubud.  We also ate at Spices, which had very good food too, kind of fusion food.  It was on the main drag right near the Starbucks and Market, definitely a modern, tourist oriented place, but with good food.  

We really enjoyed a trip to see the water palaces- Tirta Ganga and Ujung.  We didn't know you can swim and should swim at Tirta Ganga, especially as the time of day we got there was hot!  But we fit a lot in that day (we also did a traditional village that we could have skipped as it was very commercial for a traditional village, and the bat cave temple, which unless you really like bats, isn't a must see) but three things I enjoyed were Ujung, Tirta Ganga and Kertha Gosa.  Lunch at Tirta Ganga provided a nice selection of good restaurants.  I wish I would have known to say to skip the other places we could have also added in a pool or beach stop if we did that.  When you go for a tour in the morning I would recommend taking a bag with bathing suit and sarong just in case, we would stop at a convenience store in the morning and get drinks and some snacks that we added to the bag because sometimes you just need a snack in between stops.

We also went to Lake Bretan and saw the two crater lakes, the botanical garden there was very pretty, but it wasn't really the season for orchids, so a lot of things weren't blooming, but it was very pretty.  The temple at Lake Bretan was just jam packed with tourists, we just took our pictures and went to get back in the van.  On the way we saw some beautiful, huge rice terraces which I really enjoyed.  I would eat at Lake Bretan when you stop, we went up to the top overlooking the lake and we ate outside at this little restaurant, the food was fine, but the flies were intense.  We also stopped at the coffee plantation this day and tried Luwak coffee and some teas.  Word to the wise, check the bags your purchase to make sure they are sealed well and no holes, we ended up throwing out a bag of tea along the journey as there was a hole in the bag.  

We visited Tanah Lot on the way to Jimbaran, and that was definitely worth the journey, it was beautiful.  We went during the day at low tide, there were a bit less tourists than at sunset, and I appreciated that.  I would definitely have that on my must see list.

Jimbaran- We stayed at the Intercontinental in Jimbaran and also loved our hotel.  We got a very good deal on it, as well going off season, although if you ask me, May is the perfect time to go to Bali, it was hot, but not too hot, and we were just past the rainy season so things were incredibly green and lush, but very little rain.  It is a very big hotel, but as it wasn't high season, it wasn't packed.  We got an upgrade to our room, and it was one of the nicest hotel rooms we have ever stayed in.  The pools at this hotel are just amazing- they have a bunch of different pools, all with water features.  They are right on the beach, although it isn't a private beach so they have their beach chairs up on the brim of the beach.  It is a great, clean beach though, you can see the planes take off from the airport, but it wasn't as close or noisy as I had been worried about.  It is a fun place to do a long beach stroll.  They came around at noonish with very cold fruit skewers, they would bring out balls and other pool toys for the kids there- all in all just very nice staff and hotel.  You can walk down the beach to the seafood market and get a grilled dinner on the beach, but note your clothes will all smell like smoke afterwards (I forget which place we choose, but they are all extremely similar).  I wanted to go to a place near the hotel, but just never managed to get there that looked really cute on the inside for dinner.  The breakfast buffet there was included in our stay, and it was just great, they had miso soup and vegetable sushi, noodles in broth with your choice of accompaniments, fried noodles with different toppings, all sorts of fruit, meats, cheeses, breads, cereals, porridge, egg station, waffle station, pancakes, you name it, they had it.  We would essentially do brunch and dinner.  We did eat dinner at the hotel two nights, one night when we were leaving for the airport at the beach grill, I forget the name, but it was very good.  The other night at their Japanese Restaurant Ko, which was highly rated, but I really don't know why, plenty of just as good sushi places here in DC, but I had been scuba diving all day, and by the time I got cleaned up it was late and I was exhausted.  The spa here was still way cheaper than in the US for the same services, but when we were leaving, there looked to be a nice spa across the street that I would check ratings on if I were staying there.  The spa was good though, we got scrubs and massages.  

A note on the scuba diving- I went to Nusa Penida to do Manta Point, and we did two drift dives there.  Manta point has incredible surge, everyone on our boat was sick by the end of that dive, although we did see Manta Rays, huge, amazing manta rays, so it was worth it.  If I dove here and didn't see Mantas due to the amount of surge, I would be pissed off.  So I would only recommend it if you REALLY have to see Manta Rays (I am spoiled and have seen an incredible amount of amazing fish in my diving, so it takes a lot to wow me now, and mantas were on my list).  After that we did a really nice drift dive where we saw a lot of great fish (angels, clown, triggers, huge moa, etc) in a much calmer section and I recovered from being super sick.  But we had wanted to do three dives that day, so they took us to another drift dive just a hop away, and there the current was so strong, I thought it was scary, we had to grab on to certain things to keep us from going to fast and I ripped up my hands.  I would never want to do that dive again.  I really thought I was going to get swept away from the group (I told them to weight me with more weights, but they didn't believe me, so when I drift, I tend to also get pulled up and this dive took a lot out of me to try to get where I needed to be.)  It was like flying through the water.  I think they just took us because it was close and it was a quick and easy was to get us our third dive.  I will find the name of the dive company and sites, because I am going to put it on TripAdvisor, but I don't recommend using them.  They should have told us either only two dives, or gone to a different site further away.  My dive buddy was staying longer than me and did the USS Liberty, which I wanted to do, but couldn't find a company that would take just me (and my Mom doesn't dive) and he said that was a good dive too.  I think they gave him a discount on it based on that dive being terrible, but I was leaving the next day.  They were nice people when I talked to them, but they just didn't seem to be as nice or professional as other places I have gone that really give you good advice on where you can see, what the dives will be like, and if the conditions aren't good- not going.  But it was REALLY hard to find a place that would take single divers.  We went one evening to see the dance at Uluwatu and that was worth it despite the amazing number of people they packed into the show.  It was close to our hotel and we were taken by hotel staff and they were wonderful and guided us to all the right places, and it was reasonably priced given how great they were.  I think it was worth seeing the temple and show.  We saw another dance show that was filled with some different shows with different characters and that was fun to see, as well.  

I wish we had like three more days on our trip, I would have liked to see the Gili Islands, but we needed to break up the flight back with a stop in Dubai, it really helped my Mom manage those long flights.  I loved Bali, I found it very affordable.  The people really wanted you to have a great time, despite being asked for a taxi a million times- that was the only annoying thing that I really disliked.  I thought it was kind of a cross between St John and India in a way.  I would go back in a heartbeat though.  The amount of care for the presentation of items to make everything look lovely was just astounding, every meal, every temple, every hotel room had details to make it lovely.  It was easier to be in than some developing areas, you felt like people had more of an ability to control their own destiny and that people generally were happy about being there.  I would recommend the bug repellent lotion (Picardin) that lasts 8-14 hours, that really worked well for us, we would put it on in the morning, and after showers in the afternoon if we took them, and we didn't get ANY bug bites, despite lots of sweat and etc.  I wish I had this when I went to Japan last year.   I don't recommend thinking you can drive yourself, or renting a scooter unless you are very adventurous, and make sure you get the license from Bali you need, as we heard and saw tourists being shook down by the po-po for not having it.  If you can find a good driver at the start to use for most of your trip it really will save you a lot of money.  We thought a couple of times that the guides were required to visit a few temples as they were dressed in official looking garb, there is only one temple where the guide is required (forget the name, biggest temple in Bali) and you really don't need them.  We didn't run into aggressive monkeys, but we also didn't go looking for them.  It was very easy to change money and they liked cash, especially in Ubud.  It was also super easy to find ATMs.  That is all I can think of for now, will come back and add things in as I remember.