hey guys here's 10 things we wish we knew before moving to bali
hey guys it's lloyd and mandy here welcome back to another video
in today's video we're going to be discussing 10 things we wish we knew before moving to bali so
we've been living in bali for almost six months now when we first got here there were a few
hurdles we had to jump and a few things we didn't really know that we wish we did before we got here
yes um we wish someone had told us these things we watched a lot of youtube videos before coming over
but we still feel like there was a few things missing that would have really made it easier
when we got here so we're going to give you our 10 things we wish we knew before moving to bali
gojek's a really really handy thing to know about it's essentially uber
in indonesia you can use gojek for just about anything the probably most important thing you
need it for when you get off the plane if you have gojek on your phone already you can order a gojek
right outside the terminal it's just a little walk and don't worry if you only have cash because you
can pay with cash as well they will ask you for credit card details when you sign up but
you don't need to give your credit card details you can use all cash with gojek and it's been a
life saver we use it every day in fact we caught a kojak here today because it was raining yeah you
can also get food delivered shopping done for you you really can use gojek for just about anything
you need cash wherever you go of course there's restaurants and places that accept
credit card or debit card um but always have cash from you because you're going to get stuck
if you're going out for a night make sure you have plenty of cash to get home or to buy drinks
or to pay your bill like i can't tell you the amount of times we've been in a restaurant and
racked up a bit of a bill only to find at the end of the night that they don't accept card
it's not like australia where basically everywhere except card bring cash with you
wherever you go uh there's atms everywhere so don't stress too much about it i have a travel
money card that i use so i can get indonesian repairs straight out from my bank account
if you don't have one that's a good tip but yeah just make sure you have cash wherever you go
and small bills as well they don't they often don't have change we find so getting smaller bills
even going into the bank and breaking down even if you give a hundred thousand and the bill comes to
80 000 sometimes that throws them for a loop so sometimes you'll have to have exact money
or exact change uh just something to keep in mind as well yeah hold on to small bills
we should know how to speak indonesian a bit better most people do speak english here which
is really handy but sometimes you'll go into areas that don't speak much english and it just really
helps being able to communicate with people so having google translate on hand is really really
handy yeah and like we've used actually when we had to go to the doctor it's really handy
to have google translate because sometimes you don't want things to get lost in translation
yes um when we were sick we had to uh we'll try to organize an ambulance to come and pick us up
and we have to use google translate for the person at the front desk don't even have to download it
onto your phone you can just use it straight from google but if you have the app it's really helpful
there is a rule when you come into indonesia and you're planning on staying an extended amount of
time if you plan on using a local sim card you're required to register your imei number at customs
and pay any import taxes that are required so this has to be done within two months of arrival
otherwise you will not be able to register your card but don't worry because you can get a
tourist sim card which is what they call it and this will allow you to use your phone for about
three months you can use your phone as normal for three months but after that three months
it will expire which we found out the hard way we didn't actually know that that's what it was
and our phones just stopped working one day but you can go and get another tourist sim card if
you need just be warned that your phone number will change every time you get a new sim card
but it's a relatively easy process if you don't want to go down the road of registering your imei
and paying all the fees and you're not sure how long you're going to be staying
in bali just ask for a tourist sim card at any of the local phone shops
we were pretty naive to dengue when we were coming over and unfortunately we got it within
the first week of us arriving if you've seen our previous videos we've talked about this a little
bit really make sure that you keep your immune system up we recommend drinking jammu juice
if you don't know what that is definitely look it up it's really good for keeping your immune
system intact which helps fight off dengue if your immune system is low it can really
have a negative effect on you dengue comes from a certain mosquito it doesn't come from all of them
predominantly they hang around stale water so if you're near the rice paddies or anything like that
a higher chance of probably getting dengue fever they're more likely to bite your ankles or your
elbows we've learned but make sure that you're using the right mosquito repellent we were using
a natural repellent and it just wasn't strong enough the best ones to use are sophel or just go
into the pharmacy and ask whoever's working what's the best one for you to use that they have on hand
to protect you from dengue fever also you're going to want to make sure that you're covered
for insurance if something does go wrong we use safety wing insurance we will leave the link in
the description if you're interested it's super affordable and it's really good for digital nomads
anything you can think of you can get delivered we had to renew our visas and we're in ubud at the
time and we trekked all the way into denpasar to give our passports to the visa agent so they could
renew our visas i didn't find out until later that we could have just paid them 50 000 repair to come
and pick them up and that goes for anything if you need anything sent anywhere or picked up it
can all be done through the gojek app or even if you're just buying something off somebody they'll
offer delivery and they'll figure out a way to get it to you so everything can be delivered
don't worry you don't have to go traveling miles and miles to pick up items or deliver items
so generally speaking when you're giving a given a price there is some room for negotiation this
doesn't really count for places like restaurants or cafes or anything where there's like a set
menu but if you're buying anything from like a market or anything like that or a tour generally
everything is negotiable they're going to give you the price which they know is the highest price
they can probably get and they understand that you're going to come back to them with another
price usually if they offer you a price and you just say no i don't want it they'll ask you
how much do you want it for in other words like they're expecting you to negotiate yeah um so keep
that in mind but obviously things like when you're shopping at uh big retail shops or restaurants
or bars don't go in and try and negotiate the price of a beer or something like that
so whatsapp is widely used in bali it's the biggest communication tool here unlike in
australia and mostly in canada people use just messenger through iphone or text messaging that's
not the case here whatsapp is everything we don't even really have credit on our phones
to be able to use them regularly we pretty much just use it for data with whatsapp so definitely
get whatsapp set up on your phone if you don't have it because it's a lifesaver you can message
pretty much any business through whatsapp to ask any questions make reservations anything like that
whatsapp's the way to do it yeah and if you're looking at booking anything before you come over
here just get their whatsapp number because you can be booking hotels uh hire cars tours
whatever it is you could be communicating with them through whatsapp before you even get to bali
and even the big hotels and things like that they're really good like they
respond to you within 24 hours whereas if you
are just sending somebody an email i feel like it gets lost a little bit in the inbox yeah yeah
number two is transfer wise this is something i didn't really use
back home but just like whatsapp it's pretty much the main way people transfer money to each other
and pay for either goods or services so if you're paying for anything like maybe a visa renewal
or um anything like a tour booking a hotel you can use transferwise we actually had a funny
story where uh we're on the beach in seminyak and a lady offered to sell us uh some beads and
we didn't actually have any cash on us because we were just sitting at a restaurant
and we told her that and she said no worries you can just transfer us and she got us there
which was surprising because there's actually like really low fees and yeah it's probably the
main way that money changes hands here apart from cash obviously yeah transfer wise so make sure you
download transferwise before you get here and make an account super easy to use all you need
is like an email address and it links up to your credit card or debit card so make sure you do that
the water is quite harsh it's called hard water so you can't drink the water here it's
quite harsh on your skin it dries out your skin it dries out your hair we didn't realize how
negatively the water would affect us here and it does take a bit of time
to get used to it so that's something to think about definitely stock up on quality hair care
products if you're you know fair like me my hair actually started falling out so i highly recommend
something like olaplex or speaking to your hair stylist before coming over if you don't want your
hair getting completely destroyed getting a good body moisturizer as well that's really hydrating
really helps another thing that i will mention if you're planning on swimming in pools when you come
in some pools the amount of chlorine is quite high in them so if you want to prevent your hair from
turning green like mine did definitely wet your hair before you get into the pool so your hair
doesn't absorb all the chlorine it was a nightmare and it cost money to get it fixed i know many
other people have had this issue happen to them but that's the hack to make sure it doesn't happen
to you so you can still enjoy the resort or the pool that you're at make sure you wet your hair
before you get into the pool just as a bonus one last thing we wish we knew before we got here how
good the local food is yes and how nice the local people are yeah don't be scared to go to local
warongs i know we were scared at first we didn't we heard like stories about barley belly and going
to the markets we're actually told by a couple of locals not to eat at the markets because we'd get
barley belly but once we started venturing out we found that the food was really good
we haven't had any issues being sick i don't know maybe we don't have sensitive stomachs but i
usually do so that's why i was very surprised and i was very very timid when we first got here about
eating anything sort of that had been sitting out or anything but we eat indonesian food probably
75 of the time now and i my sensitive stomach i've been fine so it really makes local people's
day when you venture out from the expensive or western restaurants just to even go in and
try at one time really really makes them happy yeah so some of the dishes do contain a lot of
msg and oil but you can find healthy options on the menu as well so don't be scared to try that
we hope you guys have found this video helpful in some way if you have don't forget to hit the like
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and we will see you guys in the next one bye this one's for my ski makers my dream chasers trying
to make it trust you gotta hold on to faith and be patient i know you're trying to get to the days of
elation and all those obstacles in your way won't delay it it's a lesson blessings or blessings