we didn't know that when we were coming over and had we known
that we might have maybe pushed our our trip back from from coming to bali
hi guys welcome back to another video i'm mandy and that's lloyd and we're digital nomads that
currently live in bali indonesia in this video we're going to be sharing with you what it's like
living in bali in 2022 so we've been getting a lot of questions from subscribers either in
the comments or on our instagram dms just about what it's like in bali right now so we thought
we'd go through just a few things and answer a few questions to let you guys know what it is actually
like living in bali in 2022 i guess during the pandemic pandemic still going yeah so lloyd
and i decided to move here because we wanted to start living the digital nomad life originally we
thought we were going to just move to changu and live with amongst all the other digital nomads and
that's not exactly what ended up happening we've actually been moving around all around bali now
so we've got a pretty good idea of what's been happening in each area and which ones are our
favorites and which ones we'd recommend to you yeah well i mean part of being a digital nomad
is moving around yeah and we're not actually living in bali permanently we've been here
for two months we'll probably be here maybe a couple more months but there's other places we
want to go this year as well we've got made a big list of destinations we want to go to after bali
after two months of being here i'd say we have a pretty good idea of what it's like living here
from our perspective it's definitely safe i feel more safe here than i have traveling in a
lot of other countries including in australia and the united states it doesn't seem to be
a lot of crime but the people are so beautiful like everyone's very kind and if you smile at
them they always smile back i haven't really had a situation yet that i've felt unsafe no but having
said that i've seen on a few of the facebook groups like changi community groups and expat
groups people reporting deaths and robberies so mainly like people maybe on the back of a
scooter with the phone in their hand and getting it snatched at night i mean that would happen
anywhere in any country in the world and you do have to keep in mind that covid
has had a pretty tragic effect on everywhere and times are a little bit more desperate for everyone
so just to be more aware you know if you're on the scooter keep your phone away and i guess not
flaunting like cameras and that sort of thing it's kind of just common sense in my opinion
yeah and as far as like security like i mean every hotel we've stayed at being or guest house there's
been 24 hour security yeah always someone looking out we've always felt pretty sad yeah absolutely
half the day is usually sunny and the other half sort of it rains but we like it i'm we
like the rain we like sitting under cover and being in it we have got caught a couple times
if you've seen some of our previous vlogs we have been caught in the rain a few times i don't know
we don't it doesn't if somebody hates rain i guess yeah you probably wouldn't enjoy it but um it just
gives you more of that sort of tropical vibe so we enjoy it and there is still days where it's
sunny for majority of the day we've gotten a lot of sun the last week yeah yeah we've had really
good luck because you're here in sonora yeah maybe if you're a surfer somebody who surfs a lot and
the wet season isn't ideal for you maybe that would affect you but it's pretty good otherwise
it seems to be a little bit different in every area that we've been to when we started in chengu
it was a little bit more pricey i was actually a little bit surprised with some of the places we're
reflecting australian prices but then when we moved out to ubud we found amazing restaurants
really affordable accommodation so i think it just depends on the area and what you're coming
here for you can definitely get an affordable meal at a local rung or you know stay at a guest house
for a more affordable place to stay it does depend on which area you decide to stay in bali as well
to give you an idea like we've been able to find accommodation for about 15 u.s a night which and
it's really good accommodation yeah yeah yeah and generally when we go out for a meal we'll spend
about ten dollars u.s between the two of us and that sort of that's at a locally owned
we're on which does really good food i think with bali you can spend as much as you want to spend
like you could go out every night and easily be spending the same amount you'd be spending
um in australia or canada or america yeah because there's a lot of western restaurants that sort of
charge expensive prices if you're here to save money like you can go out and as i said eat for
dollars between two people yeah we personally do like a mix of both sometimes
we did come to bali to experience bali which i'd highly recommend doing because indonesian
food is great if you're willing to expand and try new things the food's amazing and
it's super affordable so i'd highly recommend trying something other than what you're used
to back home as far as other bills or costs go our phones we pay about five dollars us
and get 15 giga data yeah which yeah there's wi-fi everywhere so that lasts us the whole
month and then to fill up our scooter which is an enmark scooter which is the biggest scooter
you have it costs about three dollars us if we're not doing big trips that'll last us a whole month
but we've been driving around a lot lately and it still lasts about two weeks so the scooter rental
for the month is about eighty dollars u.s which is pretty standard price the only thing
that isn't that cheap is if you want to shop at like your regular big brand clothing shops like
we went to the outlets the other day everything's pretty much the same price as it was back home
yeah that's like quicksilver rip curl vulcan billabong yeah pretty similar prices yeah
the food is probably number one yeah like we've eaten so much good food since we've been here
and we go out for every meal and every meal is different it's been amazing i would also say
the people their spirit is just so good there's so much to do there's so many tours activities
places to see like we kind of underestimated the size of bali and how much there is to do here
when we got here we were both sort of taken away like taken back by how busy still like heavily
populated i guess i should say places are yeah and everywhere you go there's something to do and
on top of that like just outside of bali you've got all the different islands that
you can visit there's so many places to travel as well i would also say that there's a lot of
like-minded people here so people who are working online or just interested in travel and adventure
here so that'd probably be one of the best reasons to come here the yoga's been absolutely amazing
in bali i highly recommend coming here if you are a yogi we spent a lot of time at yoga barn
in ubud and we've tried many different yoga studios since we've been here and it's just
every single one's top to the next so if you're wanting to come to bali for yoga i do recommend it
as a whole we love bali so far right we've loved living here there are a few things as westerners
that have been sort of i guess hard to get used to sort of downsides i guess for us just because
we're not used to it one of them for me being a fair-haired blonde girl i've definitely noticed
the water quality here it's been really hard for me to maintain my hair it's just different
it's just different and because i have yeah very fine hair um it's just it's called hard water so
it's it's quite intense so if you are like me i do recommend getting high quality shampoo and
conditioners before you come because they're also quite expensive here as well as the water is not
safe to drink here and i myself don't even brush my teeth with the water because when we were sick
it did start to weaken my immune system as well because i was already sick so
i've just decided that i should probably not maybe i'm just quite sensitive yeah and also
sort of a little bit harder to find certain products in stores that you might be used to
back home like luxuries yeah i mean like bathroom products even just certain foods and fruits
in the supermarkets you might be expecting to just find everything that you can back home
but no you get used to it but that's probably the only other real downside i would say yeah
so if i was to give anyone recommendations on things to purchase or invest in before coming
over number one would be a really good rain jacket you're going to use it all the time we have ours
with us flat out we use it pretty much every day bring sunscreen because it is quite expensive here
when you get here get the soffel brand mosquito repellent we didn't do that i was using just a
natural australian-made mosquito spray and it was not strong enough and it did not protect us from
dengue fever and we got that in the first week of us arriving in bali so i'd highly recommend
doing that as well and for ladies it's quite hard to find feminine products here i don't
know if it's just been the stores that i've went into but they are very expensive and
hard to find good quality ones so make sure you stock up on them before coming
it's really good you can go if you want to any cafe with wi-fi they all pretty much have wi-fi
as well there's it's not hard to come by wi-fi here but ourselves we don't tend to
prefer to do that we like to have somewhere where we can actually sit and work all day
without it being like in a public setting where there's food being ordered and stuff so we've
um we spent like about five weeks at outpost co-working in ubud there's an
outpost in chengdu as well and there's a there's a bunch of other co-working places around bali but
that was our favorite there's so many digital nomads and people working online
entrepreneurs here yeah it's really easy to do there's internet everywhere you go
i would say you can definitely tell that there's not as many tourists around whenever you go to a
restaurant it's pretty quiet changu was probably the exception there seems to be a lot more people
in chengu there's a lot of local tourists from indonesia traveling at the moment not many
internationals now you can definitely tell that we're in the middle of a pandemic because
it's actually kind of sad when we're in ubud and sanur as well like walking past a lot of these
restaurants and there's you know staff members standing at the front and there's
just nobody in them yeah which kind of sucks it definitely puts into perspective how busy
bali usually is the fact that there is so many businesses that are just standing around at the
moment really shows how many people there usually are compared to what there is now on the flip side
if you do want to go to any touristy destinations right now has been pretty amazing we've got to
hike mount batur we were the only ones at the top for a long time we weren't fighting for a
view or a picture or anything with any other tourists we were the only ones in the tagalong
rice terraces by ourselves just things like that you get to experience them completely differently
than you would in peak tourist season but having said that the vibe of local amazing
like they're so happy to see any tourists and we've really enjoyed going around to different
restaurants and warongs and sort of spreading our money around a little bit and enjoying all these
locally owned places the pandemic hasn't really ruined the vibe of the locals no their spirits
are still beautiful and they're very welcoming and it's been really nice having that quality
time to sit down with the owner of a business and have some quality time with them so this last bit
that we just wanted to note we don't want to scare anyone away from coming to bali but at the moment
visa agents are advertising that there is a seven day quarantine to come into bali so if you are
planning to come to bali during this quarantine time we do recommend speaking with your quarantine
hotel as if you do test positive for covid during your hotel quarantine you do not get to stay in
that hotel you get transferred either to an isolation facility which is like a hospital
and the conditions don't sound that amazing um and if you are the only one
in your group who tests positive for covid you will be separated from them well that's
currently and that's just the current situation so we just wanted to be transparent with that because
we didn't know that when we were coming over and had we known that we might have maybe pushed our
our trip back from from coming to bali but that's just a preference thing we just i wouldn't like
to be separated from lloyd because he's sort of the the brains of our travel operation and
it's sort of scary i guess if you if you were unaware that that was happening they aren't very
upfront with telling you that that's how it works because in western countries we just get to stay
in the quarantine hotel if you test positive until you test negative but that's not the case here so
we just wanted to let everyone know that i would just suggest doing your own research so jump onto
the indonesian government website to see what the procedure is because it does change as well and i
know on some of the quarantine hotel websites it does say if you receive a positive test you will
be moved to a different facility or a different accommodation but just do your own research and
don't take someone else's word for it don't don't even take our word no no just make sure you have
a look before you come over and you're prepared for what may happen that's all i'd say and inquire
with your quarantine hotel and confirm with them what happens if you test positive before you book
it highly recommend doing that and that applies for if you test positive when you get off the
plane when you check into the hotel or if you test positive on your last day of quarantine
so either way anyway guys we hope this video has helped you in some way if you enjoyed this
video please hit the like button and subscribe to our channel and we'll see you in the next one