The Long Way Home: Seminyak, Bali

Following on from last week’s post, we have moved on from Ubud to Seminyak. As I said, Seminyak is described as an upmarket resort town. In my head, I pictured something similar to a European resort with nice promenades. Wishful thinking.

The Hotel

We stayed at the Jambuluwuk Oceano Resort, a four star hotel close to the beach and the famous Potato Head beach club. The pictures looked really good. The main pool looked inviting but not as great as the infinity pool and jacuzzi on the rooftop. Did I mention it had not one, but two, swim-up pool bars?When we arrived after a manic hour drive on the streets of Bali, the hotel was like a peaceful haven. Unfortunately though, the check-in time wasn’t 1pm as it said on the booking but an hour later. There would be no rooms until dot on 2pm. We took advantage of this by setting off on foot and getting our bearings in Seminyak.Well, what I pictured Seminyak to be quickly went out of my head. Maybe I had set myself up for disappointment but it was far from my idea of a upmarket resort town. There was construction everywhere. The cry of TAXI in Ubud had been replaced by bluebird taxis constantly beeping for your attention. Godforbid you slow down to try and cross the road as an infinite amount of taxis will crawl and stop right next to you praying you’ll get in. If i’m honest it was also a lot dirtier than Ubud.I feel like I always come across as negative in many of my blog posts but I really just want to show you that travel is not always glamorous. The places that we armchair-travel to on Instagram are not always picture-perfect as people would have you believe. I want to get across that it’s okay to not like places that the whole world seems to be going mad for.Anyway, the weather was good so we planned to chill on the rooftop pool once we’d checked in back at the hotel! Eventually we got a room although, on opening the curtains, it turned out we had no balcony and looked directly into a nightclub. A quick Google search told us the nightclub opened at 11pm until 5am; but not on our first night.The room itself was a bit shabby; nothing like the official pictures showed but I think everyone is used to that now unless you’re up for spending hundreds of pounds per night. Oh, I’ve just remembered, the connecting door into someone else’s bedroom was open. That would have given our neighbours a fright.  SURPRISE!

Time to Relax

The plan for the week was mostly just to relax as though you would on a ‘normal’ holiday. We didn’t really want to tire ourselves out going on more tours and get ferries across to other islands. Just a simple week of sunbathing, swimming, food and a few beers.We spent our first night at the beautiful but badly named Woobar at the W Hotel. Directly on the beach, we watched the sunset from sofas underneath lanterns. The best part of this was the 2 for 1 cocktails in happy hour including free snacks and a free pizza! This is at a five star hotel and works out cheaper than a lot of the other places. We’re still talking AUD$16 for a cocktail but you just have to make it in time for happy hour.[easy-image-collage id=2584]I won’t go into too much detail of the rest of our time in Seminyak as you’d probably get bored quickly. I’ll skim through so you can just look at the pretty pictures.On day two, we sunbathed but we’d only brought factor 15 suncream with us. No idea why as we were using factor 50 in Australia and still got a healthy tan. I burnt in no time obviously. I have never been as sunburnt in my life! My face, neck, chest, arms, stomach, legs and ankle were redder than a beetroot. This caused a hell of a lot of pain and I’m actually still peeling as I write this about two weeks later.Once the nightclub opened, we didn’t get much sleep at all. Is there any need for so much bass? The housekeeping didn’t turn out to be too good at cleaning the room either. Well I’m not so bothered about the clean room but just some fresh bottled water that’s promised. It was normally around 5pm that the room was cleaned and even that took repeated phone calls to reception.  The hotel were willing to move us but only after we’d spent four nights in that room!We ate some really good food too thanks to some blog posts but mainly Tripadvisor. I love Tripadvisor! Nothing too weird either; banana flour waffles, honey butter fried chicken, Roti with Malaysian curry, pizza at a rock bar and baos. For those that don’t know, baos are like Chinese burgers but the bun is steamed.[easy-image-collage id=2585]We also took a taxi further north to Canggu which had a much more laid-back vibe. It was full of surfers and some cool little bars. Old Man’s is like an institution and The Lawn is the perfect place to watch the sunset. We bagged the prime seats on the rooftop, ate four meals all whilst I felt like my legs were on fire. Thanks sunburn.If you do ever go to Seminyak, just try and avoid Saturday and Sunday nights. If you like the idea of an Australia Malia or Maguluf, then you’ll love it. It isn’t even meant to be that bad here. Kuta, further south although in the same built up area, is where it’s at! It’s so busy on these two nights that it took us an hour to drive from Canngu to the hotel which, I think, was a journey of about 6km.Before I finish up, I also need to just say that I saw a scene that wouldn’t have been amiss in the Hangover films. Just casually walking down the street, minding our the way of the traffic, dodging scooters on the paths, when I see a monkey on a leash outside a tattoo shop. The owner was just chilling with his monkey. Not great for animal rights but it gets weirder. On the table was another, one I thought wasn’t real until he picked it up. An actual crocodile. Just sat there with his mouth open. No bigger than say your wrist to your elbow but what’s he going to do when it grows to ten feet long and wants to eat him for breakfast? Crazy country.

Moving On…Again

Overall, my impressions of Bali haven’t changed. The bars in the posh hotels and beach clubs are very nice but, honestly, you can’t polish a turd. This might be a bit brutal as the Balinese people are some of the loveliest I’ve ever met. They never stop smiling and seem so happy. But why would I want to come to an evidently third-world country to pay Australian prices (practically) for drinks and pretend it’s paradise. Did I forget to mention that the sea in Seminyak is classed as untreated sewage? I will be writing a post later on the side of Bali that’s not shared just to be honest with you guys.Anyway, that’s all for this post, we’re heading to our third country which is one of only three city states in the world; Singapore. I’ve always wanted to visit here and I’m looking forward to something a bit more built up and advanced. We’ve also treated ourselves to a night in, quite possibly, the best hotel in the world!Thanks for reading as always and I’ll be back soon.ps. Here’s some more photos…