Travel Tips

For the last leg of our tour to Bali, we moved our base to Kuta. We stayed at Ramayan Resort and Spa. Check out the review here . This is a very touristy place and I guess it is the area which receives the maximum visitors in Bali. It has a number of hotels, restaurants (providing different cuisines), bars, etc. Kuta beach is a favorite amongst visitors and gets a number of surfers here. We witnessed the Mumukur ceremony here which is supposed to be similar to the Shraddha ceremony performed in India. We ate at the Queen's in Kuta which offers authentic Indian cuisine. We loved it so much that, we had all our meals in Kuta here. We did a short half-day site-seeing tour during our stay here. Our first stop was at the  Garuda Wishnu Kencana. It is a cultural center where you can see Balinese dance in its open air amphitheater. We saw the Barong dance performance there. Barong is a lion like mythological creature of Bali. Barong represents the good and is an ene...

We had read some great reviews on the climb to Mount Batur but were really unsure of whether we will be able to do it. Finally a part of the group decided to "go for it". (The youngest was 9 years and the eldest was 66 years). The climb to the top of Mount Batur needs to start early enough so that you reach the top to catch the first rays of the sun, which is a spectacle. We started from our hotel at 2:30 a.m and reached the starting point for the climb by 3:00 a.m. We arranged for a guide from the Mount Batur Guides Association for the climb, which is a must, given that the entire climb happens in the dark. The guide services come along with a package deal for breakfast which includes eggs, bananas and tea/coffee. These taste divine after the exhausting climb to the top. Torches are provided for, which prove useful. Carry sufficient water along, but ensure that it doesn't weigh you down during your climb. You can also get pull-overs on hire here as well. We opted ...