Promoted brand - Bali island
A trip to the island of Bali was a big disappointment for me, as strange as it may seem. Before the trip, I heard a lot of reviews, for example, Bali is a paradise, the best place to relax, that Bali is better than Thailand, Turkey and the like. In fact, it turned out that Bali is a well-promoted brand. The resort is very expensive, the cost of dinner or lunch was at least $ 20 per person, and at the hotel it was all $ 50, excursions through a travel agency from $ 50, massage and spa treatments from $ 30, ten times more expensive than in Thailand, and on much lower in quality.
The locals will not miss their own, it seemed to me that in their behavior there is a bit of some kind of negativity and even start. This is probably why the resort areas are fenced and well guarded. In places reserved for tourists, it is clean, well-groomed, but empty and dead, even the merchants of all sorts of things on the beach walk in the same T-shirts with numbers. The question arose why such isolation, if the island of Bali positions itself as very safe, with almost no crime. The Nusa Dua area is deserted, we walked to the Bali Collection, there are almost no people, only a taxi. All this deprives tourists of the joy of communicating with the local population, which is available in Thailand, Turkey, etc.
Excursions are not very informative, mostly visiting temples, the only worthwhile excursion to the island of Java. The ocean does not please with very strong low tides and water temperature. It was possible to swim only 3-4 hours a day, and even then the water level did not rise above 1.5 meters. It was not possible to buy enough. The water in the hotel pool was heated to a sufficient temperature only in the evening.
Excursions are a disappointment, massage and spa are a very big disappointment; the ocean is the most painful disappointment; nature is beautiful, in Thailand the same. Was it worth flying with transfers to this island? I won't go for the second time.