Are you tired of reading about us going to the beach yet? I’m not sure we will ever tire of being at the beach, and Canggu in Bali was certainly a beauty.
I will attempt to keep this post pretty short because a.) I’m behind like whoa on posts, and b.) we were total beach bums. Let me try to see what is worth sharing about being super lazy for five days in a beach town in Bali!
Day 129: Travel from Ubud to Canggu in Bali
We really loved our time in the hills of Ubud, Bali and were excited to see what going to the beach looked like in Bali.
I’ll spare you the details, but Ubud is decidedly anti-Uber. Apparently, there is a really strong taxi, umm, union, and we cancelled our Uber after our driver gave us the sketchiest instructions: “Go into a cafe to wait for me. Tell me your names, and when I come in, act like you have known me for a very long time. Very long. Do not, under any circumstances, wait on the street for me. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.” Umm, we’re good. Thank you, next.
After about an hour drive in a taxi, we arrived at our beautiful villa! This AirBNB is owned by a woman from New York, and we had a bedroom and bath that walked out on to a pretty pool and courtyard.
For lunch, we walked down the street to a yummy Thai place called Bangkok Hustle. And here I’m going to share what was probably our biggest frustration with Canggu: the sidewalk situation.
Bear with me. We really do not have the budget to rent a car or bike or pay for taxis except for very infrequently. We also love to walk and find it to be the best way to ensure we get enough exercise. When walking turns out to be dangerous or difficult, we get really frustrated because it makes getting around that much harder.
Canggu was filled with twenty-something kids on holiday who all rent motorbikes, to the extent that there is motorbike traffic. We also watched a very intoxicated woman run her bike off the road. Seriously. So being a pedestrian on these bike-filled roads was not our favorite.
For dinner, we found a place that served authentic banh mi. Well, authentic in taste; they were delicious. At about $3/sandwich, it was the cheapest meal we could find and at least twice as much as we paid while we were eating them in Vietnam. Vietnam spoiled us for authentic, inexpensive, delicious street food!
Day 130: Rich’s Third Haircut
(Of the trip.)
We ate breakfast cooked for us at our villa, and then Rich walked to get his haircut, and I read by the pool.
His hair looked good! The barber left it a bit long on the top, so we’ll see how it does for the next six weeks…Stretching the time between haircuts is one more way to stretch the budget.
We spent the rest of the day blogging and planning and spending time at the pool. If I were to name the place on the trip where we realized we were just worn out, it was definitely Canggu. Being on the move for the past five months caught up with us!
For lunch, we ate our second banh mi and ate dinner at Bangkok Hustle…again. It was during this dinner that we watched the young lady run her bike off of the road, and we bonded over the experience with an Australian couple next to us.
Joel and Jane, our new Australian friends, shared that many Australians treat Bali, and Canggu in particular, as their playground where they head to let loose. We really enjoyed chatting with them and sharing experiences of long-term travel. Joel and Jane are taking close to a year to explore Australia in a van. As in they are living out of a van. Hard core! Check out their blog if you are interested in learning more about what that’s like!
Day 131: Visiting the Beach at Canggu
We weren’t total beach bums; before breakfast, we jumped out of bed and did a couple of body weight workouts on my Aaptiv app.
We then enjoyed the breakfast provided by the villa and spent a few hours by the pool. We ate lunch at a nearby cafe. Bali has a plethora of amazing restaurants serving fresh, healthy food from around the world. Our budget limits where and how much we eat, but if you are looking for a vacation where you enjoy a smoothie bowl for breakfast, a huge warm pumpkin quinoa bowl for lunch, and practically anything you can imagine for dinner, I highly recommend finding a way to get to Bali.
Late in the afternoon, we walked to the beach to see it and catch a sunset. Our walk was a good thirty minutes– remember, the sidewalk situation– but it was worth every step. The beach was beautiful, with huge, powerful waves. And there were so many surfers! There were easily 50-75 surfers trying to catch a wave when we arrived. It was rather magical; I had never seen any kind of surfing scene like that. It could have been in a movie.
We enjoyed walking the beach, and watching the sun set over the water.
For dinner, we ate at a great pizza place called Luigi’s Hot Pizza. They had plenty of outdoor seating, white bistro lights, and lots of young male servers who clearly had a lot of fun working with each other. We split a tiramisu for dessert, and it was divine. Pizza + beach = great day
Day 132: Football + Work
The Georgia Bulldogs are enjoying a great season, and we woke up at 3:30 AM to cheer on the Dawgs against Kentucky. Thankfully, Georgia won, and then we kept watching football to see the beginning of the Alabama v. LSU game. Alabama quickly went to work against LSU, and we went ahead and ate breakfast.
And then, of course, we enjoyed our UGA victory nap.
We spent the rest of the day:
- By the pool,
- Followed by banh mi for lunch (again),
- Followed by blog posting/trip planning,
- And culminating in another dinner at Bangkok Hustle.
We are nothing if not consistent.
Day 133: La Brisa Beach Club
We spent our last full day in Bali– and in Asia!– at the beach. Bali has a number of beach clubs. Each club has a minimum spend on food and drinks, but then you get access to beach chairs, a pool, a pool deck, restrooms, and a restaurant and bar. Finn’s Beach Club is probably the most well-known, but we decided to head to La Brisa as it opened pretty recently, and we liked its aesthetic.
The amount you have to spend is a little lower if you arrive earlier in the day, so we made the sidewalk-less trek over at about noon.
The set up was perfect! We had chairs on the deck above the beach and were able to put our feet up on the ledge and take out our books. We enjoyed a beer, read for several hours, took a quick swim in the pool, and then ordered lunch. It was so relaxing and easy as all days at the beach should be!
For dinner, we grabbed, you guessed it, banh mi for dinner. Our new favorite restaurant had a loyalty program where when you bought five banh mi, you got your sixth free. In five short days, we had earned ourselves a free sandwich. Hot dog! Did I mention we are budget travelers?
Final Thoughts on Canggu
Don’t get me wrong, Bali is pretty amazing. It is one of the most visually stunning places we have visited, there is an abundance of delicious food, and it is really easy to navigate, even if you have not traveled abroad extensively.
We were pretty worn out by the time we made it to Canggu though, and one impression we had of Bali was just that everyone was trying to out Bali each other. It’s a place where you hear sentences like, “Surfing brought such fulfillment to my inner small child while also empowering me as a fearless boss woman. I really worked up an appetite so I cannot wait to devour my chi seed hemp milk with a side of raw organic sprouts. But it also dried my skin out so let me apply this new placenta coconut oil lotion I just picked up.”
It is totally cool if you have that kind of energy, but at that point in our travels, wearing the same clothes out of the same backpack and living on a budget, we just did not. We had a great five days, really, but we have come to realize that our favorite places are places that don’t try too hard to be who they are, or rather where the people who visit do not feel pressure to fit a certain mold and check off extravagant bucket list items. We enjoyed Canggu for what it was for us: five more days to rest and re-charge together, surrounded by beauty.