November 2025
“Dad, how much is 100,000 Bali money in Dollars?”…for the thousandth time…”Divide by 10 and ignore 3 zeros”….clearly maths division needs to be a focus of our road schooling as the kids struggled to understand how we had come from working class strugglers in New Zealand to instantly spending millions each day in Bali.
And throw in “What do you mean there’s no fixed price Dad?”, we had two very confused kids.
“It’s called bartering kids”, welcome to South-East Asia!
Bali is one of 17,000 islands within Indonesia but probably the most well known outside of the country.
It’s a fascinating mix of tourist resorts, jungle, beaches, volcanos and scooter exhaust fumes.
Despite Indonesia having the largest Muslim population in the world, Bali is a little unique in having a predominantly Balinese Hindu population. This comes from trade with Hindu Indians that started 2,000 years ago and despite the rise of Islam in the rest of the country, Bali has retained this historic Religion and Culture.
This part of the world is an explosion on all the senses.
From the beautiful smell of burning incense, offerings to the Gods, to the wafting smells of noodle dishes being rustled up in backstreet kitchens, from the sound of constant beeping of horns to the sound of stray dogs yapping.
From the sight of a thousand smoky scooters vying for road space to the beautiful tropical greenery that fills open spaces, from the feel of torrential wet-season rain smashing your head, to the irritation of mosquitos feeding on your blood. From those tasty spices in each local dish to the fizzy taste of a Bintang beer.
Talking of stray dogs, this was always going to be a challenge when you’ve a 6-year-old who’s scared of dogs. We were hoping seeing so many might ease his fears, however that hope was gone as he trod in stray dog poo two days running.
Sanur was dressed up as a family friendly town on a long stretch of beach on the southeast part of the island.
It was our first stop, and we managed to sniff out a well-priced quirky Airbnb just a 10-minute walk from the beach. I say quirky because the central part of the house had no roof.
By design I must add. Our budget isn’t that low, that we are planning to stay in incomplete homes! There was a tree growing next to the dining table that went out through the roof. I did say it was quirky.
Within the first five minutes of arrival, as Anya and I were unpacking our bags in our room, we heard a huge crashing sound.
Rushing out to see what happened we found the huge ‘street like’ lamp that rose up out of the open roof laying on its side against the wall, miraculously with its electricity still intact.
It turned out, adventurous Alex had decided to try to climb the tree and lent on the lamp. In his defence, the lamp was rotten to the core at the bottom as the smallest of farts probably would’ve blown it over.
The property owner was soon round the next day fixing it up with some bamboo, an old tin can and some cement. One has to admire his resourcefulness.
Denpasar, home to 700,000 people, is Bali’s capital city and is usually overlooked by tourists who by-pass it to head straight to the beaches or the hippier resorts further north.
However, we had kindly been offered free accommodation from an Indonesian friend in Auckland so we thought we would take up the offer, and what the city lacks in tourist services, it makes up for in a more local experience.
Maybe I’m a bit rusty with my southeast Asia travels having been away for more than a decade but I swear I’ve not seen traffic like this. It’s a working miracle. Every millimetre of the road is used up as cars and scooters seem to be joined bumper to bumper just pushing each other along like a motor vehicle conga. I’ve seen snails on my back garden travel faster.
The horn is king. From what I can make out, a toot of the horn means “get out the way I’m coming through” regardless of what rules that might exist.
With little to keep the tourist occupied in the city, the kids were soon whining and giving us grief.
We found solace in the town of Ubud, just over an hour north of Denpasar (although coming back took us over 2 hours to do just 25km). A favourite on the tourist trail, it’s what Luang Prabang is to Laos or what Chiang Mai is to Thailand.
Yoga studios, meditation retreats, super chilled vibe, markets galore and of course, insane traffic.
When translating languages, there is usually a direct translation for most English words, however, there appears to be no meaning for the word “pavement”(sidewalk to our American readers) here.
This problem with the lack of pavements becomes magnified when you have a 6-year-old who walks like I used to walk after a session at the local pub. With scooter riders jostling for pole position like a Moto GP rider, the whites of their eyes popping from the gaps in their helmet, this kept Anya and me on our toes, often pulling him to safety.
Ubud Monkey Forest
For Our next stop, we were pre-warned that we should be careful. There was a high chance of having our jewellery stolen, our camera stolen or even our whole bag snatched if we didn’t keep our wits about us.
No, we were not back in East London, we were in Ubud’s primary attraction, the Monkey Forest.
Home to 1,000 cute looking, thieving, hungry monkeys, the signs told us not to look them in eye, for fear of some sort of attack. I felt like an Englishman walking the streets of Glasgow, in a territory I didn’t belong, a knife wielding monkey lurking on every corner ready to ambush.
In the end, the closest they got was one minor swipe at my belt, and we managed to get a bunch of good photos and plenty of “aaaawww, the baby one is so cute” from the kids. Although that sooner changed to “stupid monkeys” when Alex put his hand in monkey poo. Overall, though, we had scored some positive points with the kids at last. Even despite the chaos, the Ubud Monkey Forest turned out to be one of the most memorable family activities in Bali.
Bali Swings
I have only recently joined Instagram as part of getting this blog out to the world, but anyone who has an account is probably familiar with the Bali Swings, because apparently, they are an Instagram thing.
It is what it says it is: a swing in Bali. But there is a little more to it.
These are giant swings. Swings that swing out high above a lush, beautiful forest setting, varying heights above the ground. And they’re scattered all over Bali.
We chose Alas Harum Swing, about 45mins north of Ubud.
The setting was speculator, several swings set up high over a green sculptured landscape, overlooking rice terraces, rope bridges, sacred shrines and a walkway with man-made structures for those Instagram shots spread all along the path.
Throw in a restaurant and swimming pools and you’ve got yourself an awesome day out.
As a family, our only option for the swing, was a pretty lame “swing bed” that didn’t swing out very far and wasn’t very high but for the kids it was perfect and a great little experience for all of us.
After waiting an hour for a monster downpour to clear, the kids found the courage to go on a 300m long / 20m high zip line, clipped to each other. Shooting across the green canopy below, it was a delight to see their beaming smiles. More positive points scored.
Our final stop was Nusa Dua, in the very south of the island, where several of the islands up-market resorts are situated behind a security-controlled entrance. Denpasar this is not. Given the saving from the free accommodation, we managed to justify this spurge to keep the books balanced in line with our shoestring budget.
However, let’s be clear, we are not posh resort people. At all.
We arrived amongst the other well-dressed guests with our backpacks, unwashed clothes and a bag of food with loose carrots and chip wrappers hanging out…it was clear we didn’t fit in.
We hadn’t even dropped the bags in the room when the kids were constantly in our ears “can we go on the slide now now now…”
To be fair, the slide was epic.
Following 132 runs on the slide, what followed was a constant “I’m hungry”.
We rushed back, got changed and headed to the nearest of the hotels 5 restaurants. Fully booked. Onto the next, fully booked. The next, booked. Booked. Booked. What on earth.
The hotel is half empty, and yet no spaces in the restaurants! Clearly that’s how resorts work. With kids in tears and a major meltdown brewing, we settled for semi cold squashed burger and fish and chips from Room service instead.
Clearly this was the universes way to tell us we were out of our comfort zone.
I do not fish.
I think I’ve been a couple of times in my teens, that’s it. That was until this trip, where I’ve found myself fishing several times a day. It’s a different type of fishing that we seem to have invented in this holiday, it’s called “Fishing for Alex”.
I have lost count of the time I’ve pulled him from the water already. For a boy who can’t swim, he’s a little too confident in the water.
The final two days passed by uneventful – just non-stop slides and more fishing! We even found a place to eat outside the resort but still at ridiculous prices compared to what we had been paying.
And so, our first leg of this monster trip is over, as we head off to Thailand next.
Bali was a great warm up for the year ahead. From staying at four different locations, we got a good feel for the rich culture. Friendly people, good food, a classic South-East Asia experience. After a wobbly start, the kids seem to have gotten into the flow.
Anya and I have learnt, travelling with kids is very different than as a solo traveller or couple, and probably much more challenging that we thought. However, without them, I think this blog would be much duller, they are writing the script.
We are now off to the airport to spend our last few millions, or is it 100,000, not sure – I will ask the kids…
“Are we there yet?” count: 251
Trod in dog poo count 2
