Bali: Attractions and Road Trip Around the Island (Part 1)

Your trip to Bali can be filled with culture, nature, spirituality, sport adventures or with a mix of all that. Bali has many attractions to offer. And no matter which time of the year you will come, you will always find activities to do.

You might think that Bali is a small island that you can drive around in few hours. But it would be so wrong to think so! Because the transportation system here is I don’t want to say bad, but the traffic is really slow and rush hours are at any time of the day.

So from where should you start planning? I suggest you to arrange your trip by regions and then choose one or max two attractions per day. Yes, you heard me right – one or two. The traffic is so slow here that you physically won’t manage to visit more.

We chose to rent a car and drove around the Northeastern part of the island. It took us 7 days without any rush. We skipped the volcano though, because the weather wasn’t good enough for hiking. So one more adventure left for another trip! But we visited the most famous nature and culture attractions.

You can see many spectacular views on the way. Steep slopes, endless rice fields, locals life and many more. That’s why it’s nice to drive around Bali island and admire it’s wonders.

Pura Ulun Danu Temple

The temple is  surrounded by reflective surface of the lake which creates a unique floating impression. And the mountain range around the lake provides the temple with a scenic background. Pura Ulun Danu Temple was build in 17th century as a worship center and now appears on 50 000 Rupiah banknote.

Git Git Waterfalls

Git Git waterfalls are located in North part of Bali Island, in Singaraja (the old capital) region. It is a famous tourist attraction. The falls are also called as the ‘twin falls’ by locals due to its flow that is often split into two equal streams.

The falls are easily accessible from the main road connecting Denpasar and Singaraja. You need to walk an easy trek from the road to access the waterfalls. On this small road that leads you to the falls you will meet many young local girls trying to sell you goods.

Dolphins at Lovina Beach

Lovina Beach has smaller beaches than Kuta with black-sand shores. This name doesn’t sound Balinese, as there is no such thing as the ‘v’ in the local alphabet. Actually it was originally the name of the first resort in the area that had only three guestrooms. Its founder made up the name ‘Lovina’ Combining two words ‘love’ and ‘Indonesia’. The name outgrew the establishment and subsequently applied to the whole coastline.

As most of the tourists coming to Lovina Beach we wanted to see dolphins. I saw dolphins on my previous trips to Red Sea, Egypt when I was diving and I wanted Justinas to experience it. I found something fascinating about these creatures from the day I was born. Maybe the sense of calmness that would come to you just by watching they swim.

We easily booked the Dolphin Tour in our hostel as everyone was providing this service.  Early in the morning at 6 a.m. we headed to the shore where we supposed to get into the boat and swim to see dolphins. The tour was expected to be for about 1-2 hours. But after a while when it started we both just wanted it to finish as soon as possible.

It’s a very popular place among tourists and many or should I specify it, hundreds of boats with thousands tourists, were heading to the dolphins watching place. It was terrible. Nothing what we expected. Boats were chasing dolphins when they would have come to the surface. Terrible tourists attraction we said. It is better to go diving!

Locals Life in Rambutans Forest

Tired of tourists attractions we sat to our car and drove to chase another waterfall. It was located in the middle of nowhere. And you can see it pinned on our map as a number 5. We didn’t see the waterfall I should say, but we left really impressed by watching simple locals life.

After the turn from the main road to the waterfall you will start to notice many rambutans trees. And there is a village where people grow, sell and provide quite a big part of the island with these fruits. We were wandering around and local people were trying to explain that we missed the turn to the waterfall. Of course no one spoke English there, but we didn’t really need it.

It was the first time we saw how rambutans were grown. And it was so massive and impressive. While there is nothing really around there. After making loads of pictures and exchanging smiles with locals we left and continued our road to the other side of the island.

Read Part 2 of the article about our road trip here.

All words by Eisve Treciakauskaite and all images by Justinas Lekavicius, unless otherwise noted.
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