Bali: A first timer's family travel experience

---

"Which countries have Visa on Arrival for Indian citizens?.." -- this question was the starting point of our trip to Bali.

Rolling back a few months - we had made our grand plan with a few childhood friends in family to have an international vacation this year. Started with Turkey as the destination of choice, and then Portugal - then Egypt and Jordan. For reasons best left for another blog (and a long frustrating one!!), here we were in early May of 2023, without a destination we could all visit at the same time. Ergo, the question of "Visa on Arrival" - as we simply did not have enough time to plan AND wait for a visa. To top that, most of the SE Asian region was already approaching rainy season. Finally, it was a toss between Mauritius and Bali, both just south of equator tropical islands, with the 'wet season' behind them. After some blog-reading and youtube videos, we decided on Bali - mostly to get a good mix of beaches, culture, trekking and cuisine!

Which flights to take? -(and don't forget the layover) - this is typically not a challenge as for most destinations the choices are pretty obvious. However for Bali we realized that our 'usual' airlines either don't fly or are very expensive. Especially with less than 15 days to go, tickets available were pretty expensive and mostly from Air Asia. We realized that Air Asia doesn't include check in baggage as part of the ticket price, and that was an extra ~10K INR, which made it even more expensive. We also found Malaysia based Malindo Air (now acquired by Batik Air), which we had no reviews about, and which had started operations from Bangalore very recently. They operate 2 days a week from Bangalore, and have 10-12 hours layover in Malaysia. But were cheaper, and included baggage. Remembering the old saying about life, lemon and lemonade, we went for Malindo air, and planned to fit in a day trip of Kuala Lumpur during our 12 hour layover (6 AM to 6 PM, quite idea really). It was a great decision - KL was nice and it was a fun day spent. At this point, I must appreciate Klook - it is an awesome aggregator, and often give a good combination of convenience and a good price, if you do not have the energy or knowledge to find local tours. We used Klook to book at 6 hour tour of KL, with pickup and drop from KL airport, in a private car. So for about 5-6K INR, we had a really great guy pick us up and drive us around town, taking to all the photo spots, and some unique ones. Along with that, he filled us in with a good dose of local politics and history - E.g. Did you know that out of Malaysia's 13 states, 9 are monarchies with Sultans, and they elect a 'king' as the Federal head of state? OR, that Kuala Lumpur translates to 'muddy confluence' and was essentially the place where Gombak river met the Klang river - we did see the confluence, which is at the center of the old city.






How many days?

---