Bali Trip Diary - 7 Days in Bali and Komodo Islands!

Inspired by recent Europe Tour diary by "@Alpha.Barood":https://www.desidime.com/user...86 and "@bip100":https://www.desidime.com/users/...57 and just back from Bali day before yesterday and everything fresh in my memory, here's experience of the tour.. Hoping its helpful to Dimers. ======== It all started due to this thread on 3rd May - https://www.desidime.com/forums/hot-deals-onlin... Bali for Rs. 1231! Was a breathtaking deal !!! However, since I was busy in office meetings, I missed it by few minutes... But prices were still cheap (around Rs. 6k) and AirAsia starting from Mumbai, I just could not resist but book an unplanned vacation from June 5th to June 13th. After hearing about the great deal, my parents decided to join too and Voila! we had 5 of us (myself, wife, mom dad and my daughter) flying to Bali in 4 weeks time. Organised Tour operator was an option but as always, I love to plan travel and hence decided to do it myself.... I had already been to Bali once for a very short duration (3 days) and had stayed in Ubud. So this time around, I decided to explore relatively less-explored areas of Bali. After some research and keeping time constraint of 1 week in mind (you can spend a month in Bali easily if you want to cover the entire region).. I decided to focus on 3 areas: 1) Pemutaran / Java Island / Ijen Crater 2) Labuan Bajo (Komodo Island) 3) The normal tourist spot - Kuta/Legian Obviously, We decided to skip few places which we were interested in like Mt Bromo, WaterBom Bali among these shortlisted areas. Day 1 - 5th June Our flight was at 9:30 at night. Since it was evening time and chances of rain along with Mumbai traffic, reached early at the airport around 6:30. As many Dimers have suggested, Having a priority pass is awesomeness! You can easily get one with Regalia card and get access to selected Lounge(s) on the airports. You can read the benefits here as pointed out by "@DealSeeker":https://www.desidime.com/users/...42 Free food, Free wifi and when you are traveling with parents and baby, Its really nice! I also saw some travellers using their Axis card to swipe and get access. So Axis card holders must check if they dont have priority pass. Day 2 - 6th June - Kuta Landed at Denpasar Airport around 9:30 AM Indonesia time... As usual, checked into hotel at Kuta (Got a great deal for Park Regis on Makemytrip - Rs. 1300 / per night including breakfast for one room)... Had planned to travel to Tanah Lot temple in afternoon/evening but with baby around, all your plans go on a toss on Day one itself She was tired and so were we after the long Flight. We over-slept and modified the plans quickly. That's why I love to plan myself.. The flexibility you get to tweak your plan when not going with tour operator is really good. But you have to be prepared with your research coz you don't want your wife to find out that you are figuring out a plan B now since the baby overslept. We went straight to Kuta market and the beach in front of Hard Rock Cafe Bali... Along our way, ended up spotting Yulia's Kitchen and I remembered reading about great food at Yulia's on Tripadvisor. Suddenly Plan B was in place... Time well spent on the beach along-with some window-shopping followed by great food at Yulia's Kitchen... Day 1 ended up well and only I knew in my heart, how unplanned it was... Also, booked a car for Pemutaran for early morning... Plenty of Tour operators in Kuta market... Bargain hard, very hard... We got mini-van for 500K Indonesian Rupiah, which i thought was a good deal... 1000K-1300K was the quoted cost... so you can get an idea on how much bargain is possible. Day 3 - 7th June - Pemutaran Day 2 the plan was to visit Tanah Lot temple... Turns out that Tanah Lot temple was on the way to Pemutaran. We started around 9 in morning, visited Tanah Lot temple (great views, sunset would be even better) and reached Pemutaran around 3pm... Had a nice lunch at the Hotel... Pemutaran is a fishing village on the north coast of Bali, so dont expect the hustle-bustle of Bali you would imagine! Its a relatively un-touched area of Bali and its a great place to Relax and do Snorkelling and Scuba diving. I was not able to see a single Indian in 3 days in Pemutaran so you get the idea on how un-explored it is... But yes, there are tons of tourists (mainly people from Australia) which I could meet. Obviously, since its not mainland Bali region, You will also find great deals if you bargain. Hotels/Resorts/Villas are much cheaper so its a great place to stay if you are on a budget and want to do Scuba diving/snorkelling in even better waters! We stayed at Taman Sari Resort... Found great deal on Expedia... Used some ICICI promo code which was a flat 10% Off. Relaxed in afternoon/evening as I and my Wife were getting ready for mid-night Trek to Ijen Crater. Obviously the kid and parents planned to relax at the resort. Luckily had some contacts handy from friends and Family... Booked Ijen Crater midnight trekking and we were picked up from hotel at 11pm. Day 4 - 8th June - Ijen Crater / Blue Fire and Midnight Trek We started for Trek from Pemutaran... Ijen Crater is on Java Island (East Coast) while Pemutaran is on Bali Island (West Coast)... So obviously, you need to take a ferry to reach the other Island... (Yes! at midnight) .... Would strongly suggest not to do Ijen Crater Trekking on your own, unless you know the language. We had a proper guide who picked us up from hotel and dropped back to hotel. Here's how we went: * Car from Pemutaran to Gilimanuk Ferry point (1 hour) * Ferry from Gilimanuk to Ketapang (Banyuwangi) Ferry point via Bali Strait (1 hour) * Car from Ketapang to Base of Ijen (1.5 hours) We reached Base of Ijen at around 1:30 am or so... Was quite cold (around 10 degrees unlike Bali). Had a nice tea and some light snacks/chocolates etc as the climb to the top was not going to be an easy one. Would not go into lot of details but the trek was a strenous one... Its a roughly 2-3 hour climb (depending on your health/stamina)... You can smell a lot of toxic sulphur gas once you reach closer to the top... So Gas masks are a must... Generally, your guide would provide you one... Extremely steep for first 1.5-2 hours and then gets much flatter once you are closer to the top. You need to be prepared with masks, good shoes, couple of torch-lights, some handy snacks and Lots of water! If you have lots of stuff in your bag, you will start cursing yourself in 20 minutes... So you have to pack smart... What you see on top is simply breath-taking.. Blue fire and the largest Acid Lake on earth! The trek is def worth if you are prepared for it. One needs to reach by 4am to see the Blue fire and then climb down (Not an easy descent) towards the lake... (First 2 Image credits: Google, as i have not transferred all my pics yet to my machine) Getting down back to base was even tough with sore legs... Somehow reached the base and the long journey back to hotel. Reached around noon back to hotel, All exhausted and went straight to sleep. Goes was without saying, was great to take Balinese massage at hotel.. was quite cheap, Rs. 500 In the evening, had enough energy to book a Scuba Dive for next day! Mom dad and kid enjoyed most of the day on the beach Day 5 - 9th June - Scuba Diving We had booked a trip to Menjagan Island from Pemutaran... some 20-30 minutes away by boat and it offers excellent opportunity for Scuba Diving... Myself, my wife and my dad took the Introduction to Scuba/ Beginners dive. For people super comfortable with Swimming and water or have prior scuba diving experience, its highly recommended to take Wall dive which gives you opprtunity to dive down 20-50 metres and explore some amazing marine life. But water currents are extremely strong! We were extremely new to scuba (did only once in Tarkali, India) so we opted for back of the island which allows you to dive deep in 2-3 meters deep waters but still provides amazing marine life. Took 2 dives, did snorkeling too for an hour and lunch on the boat (horrible lunch options for Vegetarians). Those 2 hours under the sea were definitely a humbling experience... Amazing marine life floating all around you. Difficult to express in words on how it feels. Went back to hotel around 4pm and relaxed for rest of the day! Day 6 - 10th June - Drive back to Denpasar and Flight to Labuan Bajo A long journey back to Denpasar started at 7am in the morning... Reached airport and took the Flight to Labuan Bajo / Flores As soon as we landed in Flores, We could immediately see stark difference in Bali vs Flores. You will see a much poorer part of Indonesia, struggling hard to meet their daily bread and butter... Stiff Competition... As soon as i was out of Airport and gave hotel name, i could hear 4 quotes in 30 seconds - 300K - 250K - 200K - 150K.. We negotiated for 100K IDR and reached the hotel. Hotel which i had short-listed in Labuan Bajo was Waecicu Eden beach hotel.. Got a great deal for Rs. 1500 per room/per night (breakfast included). Its a hotel on island... so you have to travel there by boat, Only hotel on the island, so you get access to amazing clear water on the beach. Each room is a tree-house, so a very different experience... Spot the hotel in the pic below Its all in the woods! In hindsight, I should have not booked the hotel as it involved some climbing.. My mom had a tough time to reach the hotel room... But then she was equally happy with the views the rooms offered. Booked the trip to Komodo Island for next day. Day 7 - 11th June - Komodo Island / Pink Beach Took a tour as early as 5:30 AM to top 3 destinations in Flores 1) Padar Island The big item i had on my bucket List. I had dreamt about it since a month now! How excited and pumped up I was in the morning But guess what, the water was extremely rough... The tiny boat which we rented just could not go in direction of Padar. The boatman suggested to drop the plan... With baby alongwith you, I could not even dare to take the risk. I abided by decision with great pain. Will I ever be able to visit my dream spot ever again is what I kept thinking until we reached Komodo 2) Komodo Island You get to see and take some extremely good photographs with Komodo Dragons, largest spieces of Lizard found in the world.. They looked more like mini-Dinosaurs to me... Much bigger than i imagined. Would look lazy but can be very dangerous... Apparently, 6 tourists have been killed so far is what the guide told us by Komodo dragons. You get a guide to take you through a short or medium trek through the jungle where you spot the Dragons. I was given strict instruction to not put kid on the ground. Great! so i had to do the 2-3 Km trek with baby on my back. We were lucky enough to spot 4 Dragons.. including a baby dragon... Took some great pictures and the trek in Jungle was definitely worth to remember. Parents managed the trek too as it was very flat... No climbing. 3) Pink Beach Next destination was Pink beach. There are very few Pink beach in the world. So this was another on my Bucket List. Extremely clean water, Pink sand and Snorkelling was definitely the highlights. Overall was a great day... Day 8 - 12th June - Beach time and back to Denpasar Day 8 was all about unwinding down in the Island and going back to Denpasar for flight next day to Mumbai. Once we reached to Kuta, it was some shopping time for parents and wife. Market in Kuta - If you really are planning to shop, Bargain hard... Basic rule of thumb... Slash down the price by 70-80% from the initial cost. Day 9 - 13th June - Back to Mumbai After having a nice breakfast at the hotel, headed to the airport for the flight back to Mumbai. Overall cost per person was around 40K - 50K INR... (including flight tickets, hotels and the activities). If any Dimer is planning Bali and wish to go to these locations, would be more than happy to provide any tips!