When you're travelling, you can find that arranged tours
are a complete time saver in the planning stage, and a lot of fun.
Or, in the case of this video, result in being taken to tourist traps that are best avoided.
Today, Sara and I are heading out on a 13-hour Bali culture tour around Ubud.
It starts off great...
It's all like amazingly beautiful.
But the further we get into the tour, the more tedious and touristy it becomes.
It makes me uncomfortable.
So I think this tour is one of the worst tours I've ever been on.
So use this video as a guide of where not to visit when you come to Bali.
It's 7 a.m., we're ready for our day, so let's jump in the car and head to the first spot.
- Okay. - Okay.
This is the perfect morning drink.
Sara doesn't like it,
but I absolutely swear by, it's like coconut water with sugar.
Mine is not a sarung, but I'm super super organised.
When I'm in the car for a tour, I always have my foulard to cover myself from the A/C,
but then this foulard becomes a sarung when I go to the temple,
so: perfect!
This temple, we call it Trinity Temple.
This is Puseh Temple.
Puseh Temple.
They worship Vishnu and Brahma here.
So this is the first stop of the day, it's a huge beautiful Hindu temple.
If you're not coming as part of the tour,
it's around 30k to get in for an hour, which is really reasonable, I think.
But it's stunning and it's really really well-maintained,
the sculptures here are amazing, and it's pretty big as well.
But if I'm completely honest, it's all like amazingly beautiful.
So, Sudama just told us that sometimes, during festivities,
Balinese would come here for purification,
but other times, if there's a spring closer than the temple, then they'll go to the spring instead.
The people will cook during the festival,
because they will mix some food,
put everything.
The black colour and then the grey colour, yeah.
This one is what we call Alang Alang.
There's long grass.
And then this one, they got it from the big palm leaves.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
We call it enau, or aren.
If you're gonna do one of these culture tours, I truly recommend a guide that knows what they're doing,
and you'll learn so much as you walk around these places in Bali.
Honestly, I think that was one of the most beautiful temples I've actually seen in Bali,
which is saying something, because I've seen a few now.
So I think that's it for the temple,
but we're on to the next location, which I believe is a Barong dance,
which I've never experienced before.
Thank you!
That was really cool! We just finished the Barong dance.
As you arrive, you come into this big auditorium,
and you get to take a picture of one of the Balinese ladies that dressed up in complete formal wear.
You sit on your chairs, wait for the Gamelan to start,
and as soon as they do, Barong comes out on stage.
I'm not gonna explain the whole dance, but basically in Balinese Hindu religion,
or mythology, or something like that,
the fight between Barong and Rangda is the fight between good and evil,
and it goes on forever.
No, thank you.
No, no. I'm okay, thank you.
In hindsight, this should have been a sign that things were about to get very tourist-trappy.
The fight between Barong and Rangda, which is what this dance is about,
is like the fight between good and evil,
and this is something in Balinese religion that should be balanced all the time.
But yeah, really good, really fun, I enjoyed it actually.
What's next?
Okay.
Okay, sounds good.
Thank you very much!
Thank you.
So we've just arrived at a place where they make Batik.
Batik is like a traditional Indonesian material
here it has like a Balinese twist to the design.
And we just a quick tour, so let me show you.
Right here is the steps to how they make Batik.
So they start with a plain white sheet,
and then they move on to drawing the outline of a pencil and then they do the outline with the wax.
Then they move on to filling in the wax,
then they do the first dip with the dye,
and then they do the second dip and wash it like that.
And then it goes to just keep dipping and dying, and dipping and dying,
all the way to the end, and boiling into a pot
until it finishes to something like this.
And it's different because the pattern is done like this by hand rather than by wax,
but it takes around one day to do 1 meter of this material.
And these ladies behind me here, they're doing the wax by hand,
so it looks like they have this little pen with a little well of wax in it,
and then they dip on the wax the material as they paint out the design.
And for the Batik, when they're not doing it by hand, sometimes they put a wax on with a stamp,
so they cover it in water, dip it in the wax and stamp it onto the material
instead of doing it by hand.
So in here is the shop, where you can buy all the Batik, but...
it says no camera, so...
I will not be taking you inside, because at the end of the day, this is just one big tourist trap,
and I'm not gonna buy any Batik,
so I would have shown you the material inside,
but I'm not allowed, so we move on to the next place.
Do you like the batik?
Yeah, I think it's a big tourist trap.
- Uh? - Interesting?
It's interesting to see for sure.
Thank you!
So, next stop on our Bali culture guided tour day out is a gold and silver jewelry place.
Let's see what's going on here.
So we've just been into the first section into the workshop and they explained how they do it,
and now we're inside the shop, which apparently I can bring my camera into.
Gold and silver making in Bali is actually quite popular,
especially up here in Ubud.
And you usually get a nice ring out of it as well, so...
but moving on to the next place, I really hope it's lunch. I'm so hungry.
Spoiler alert: it wasn't lunch.
At this point, the tour was starting to get very tedious.
The Art Village tour is a string across spots that were obviously working with the tour company
to bring visitors to these tourist traps.
The setup is all the same.
You arrive, a member of the staff greets you from the car,
the place has 2 or 3 people on show working,
the staff gives you a 3-minute tour and then escorts you around the shop.
Basically, just following you trying to pressure you into buying the goods
of which, I might add, were clearly not made by the artisans that you see when you arrive,
despite them being evidently talented.
However, we were then offered the deal of the century at the wood place.
You're gonna buy it?
I don't have the money.
I give to you...
43,000 dollars.
15,000. Do you buy?
- 15? - I don't have the money.
I wish I had 15,000 dollars!
I actually saw someone else in there who was at the Barong dance,
she must be doing the same tour circle as we are at the moment.
I really can't stand this type of tour, it really makes me sick.
It makes me uncomfortable.
Hi there, Ryan from the future here.
I've just realized that I'm kind of sh*tting on all these traditional Balinese crafts,
but that's not the case. It's more just the places that we've been taken to.
But I don't just want to leave negative comments and not give you guys better alternatives to go to,
so if're planning your trip to Bali, stay until the end and I'll give you some better options.
This guy is a breath of fresh air, though.
It's still the same setup, but he takes the time to explain how a Balinese family complex is laid out.
So, I just learned that actually the Balinese, when they sleep,
they always have their head pointing to the north or the east, which is this way or this way,
because that's the direction of the god of the sun.
And each of these pillars in this temple is for each ancestor.
And it's clear that his family actually created all of the paintings.
And when the topic of buying the paintings arose,
we told him we were nomadic without a home to put them in, and he replies...
I actually kind of enjoyed that.
That was probably the best place we've been to yet,
cause for me, he wasn't really chasing us for money,
he did say "do you want to buy something?", I was like "no" and he's "okay, that's fine",
but he loved to explain what was going on and the paintings were really cool.
I agree, it was very nice. I would like to have something like this in my place,
especially the thing that his uncle was painting was super detailed,
like I would put it on my wall if I had a wall in my life.
Yeah. If you're in Bali, I do recommend.
Out of all the places we've come to today, I recommend this one the most.
Finally, it's time for lunch.
But again, this place was just another tourist trap.
So we just pulled off for lunch, I'm incredibly excited,
but I think this is where they bring everyone for lunch.
It's so busy!
Coach after coach after coach after coach after coach
after coach after coach after coach.
No, thank you!
No.
So honestly, we just finished the food,
and I wouldn't... it's not great, the food was...
You didn't even finish your food.
The place is full of tourists from Java, a big...
I didn't realize this at the time, but my mic jack was actually breaking at this point,
but basically what I was saying was the food wasn't very nice compared to the usual local dishes we eat,
and drinks weren't even included.
The place was full of Japanese tour groups from Jakarta
being loud and taking group photos all over the place.
The only good thing about this meal was the view of Mount Batur,
but we were very quick to leave after we finished eating.
Boy, am I happy to be out of that hellhole, I do not recommend that.
And now we don't know where our driver is.
He's given us another hour until we need to leave.
No, no. I have another one.
No, no.
I'm good, thank you. I've got one, thank you.
And the hell continues.
Driver acquired.
I always wondered where the Bali swings were at Tegalalang rice terraces,
I've never seen them in like my 3 times coming here.
Turns out, they're this side, the tourist area of Tegalalang
and that's why I've never seen them before.
So actually there is a part of Ubud where there is a big place full of swings,
and to enter, last time I was here,
I'm not joking, it was around 60 dollars.
It's pretty fun.
These tours, man, they...
they're taking you to definitely the most touristy spots where...
Oh my God, there's a guy on a bike
riding over, what is that? I'll show you.
To be honest, I think this tour is one of the worst tours I've ever been on,
and not the culture tour that I was expecting today.
And on top of that, our driver, bless his heart, cause he's very nice and he's a great guide,
but he's just dropped us off here at Tegalalang and said we have 2 hours...
until we leave.
The man's coming back on the bike.
A zip line and a bike on a zip line.
That's top level Bali culture right there.
All the way down this road were a bunch of really nice restaurants
and places where you can sit down and have some nice food.
There's a couple of places with pools and it's relaxing.
I would recommend going over to that part of Tegalalang,
not this part of Tegalalang.
So actually, we came like... what was it? Like a 1-minute drive down the road?
Yeah, about a 1-minute drive down the road to a restaurant called Tis,
which is a fusion Asian restaurant,
and there's no one here, it's pretty empty.
Compared to the last time I was here actually it's really empty,
and you can actually get in for free here.
And you can walk down to the rice terraces down there for free,
and there's no one around, there's hardly any tourists.
Much better to come to, in my opinion.
I won't be going down there, though, because it looks like it's about to rain.
So now we're at the final event,
culture event of the day,
and it's a kecak dance, I've actually seen this before so I'm quite...
Mic jack broke again,
but I was saying that the kecak dance, aka the fire dance,
is similar to the Barong dance we saw in the morning.
I've been to the kecak dance before in Uluwatu,
and I really enjoy it, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.
It's essentially a story-based dance,
but instead of the Gamelan orchestra, which are these guys,
the music comes from the acapella of a group of men, and it sounds like this.
It usually plays around sunset and involves some fire.
Finally, included in our tour was a dinne at a lovely warung in Ubud.
We both ate lalapan, which is fried chicken and rice,
and dinner was much better than lunch.
And that was the end of our 13-hour culture day tour.
Okay, so like I said, I had a lot of negative opinions about the tour today.
But not the entire tour, I really enjoyed the barong dance,
I really enjoyed the temple at the beginning and I really enjoyed the kecak dance.
It's just sort of everything in between.
In my opinion, the dances and the temple are really easy to get to on your own,
you don't need to book a tour for this and I really recommend that you shouldn't.
And to be honest, I can't really provide you with like an alternative tour to book on,
because I don't usually take tours and I don't know any.
Also, if you have the option of the 2,
I definitely recommend the kecak dance in Uluwatu instead of Ubud,
just the setting itself is much more beautiful
and you can watch the sunset over the sea as you're watching the dance.
When it comes to the craft village in Ubud, you really don't need to go here.
These crafts are actually found all over the island
and there are definitely other places you can go that are much less tourist trappy.
And it's also much more of an authentic Balinese experience
if you can actually get involved with the crafting.
An example of a popular place to go into and experience silver making
is Agung Silver in Sidamen,
I'm sure you've probably seen it all over YouTube before.
And also, Sara went with these guys,
and actually made some really beautiful rings of her own.
I've not actually known anyone to go and get involved with the wood carving themselves,
but after a quick Google, I've found that these 3 places have pretty good reviews
and you can get involved with the process yourself.
This place is pretty nice to get involved with batik making,
and there are a few others on Google as well.
The paint guy, actually that was pretty nice,
so I do recommend that you go pay him a visit if you're around that area.
I think what I'm trying to say is that instead of paying a lot of money
for a lackluster tour that's just gonna be one big tourist trap,
look for specific experiences instead and you can actually get involved.
It's definitely a true way to learn,
and a much better way to get involved with the local culture here in Bali.
Anyway, see you next time!