Bali

[blinki]

I'm currently in Bali and have found happy cow very useless. Last night I had rice and a few bits of carrot. Tonight I wasted $8 on taxis and stood in sewage (so then had to buy new flip flops) and was generally stupidly hungry since I'd been at the gym and this took 2hrs. Both of these when trying to take happy cows advice. Later tonight I wandered to a place a few doors from my hotel and got amazing tofu, tempeh thingy that I'm almost sure is vegan.

I'm now a little sceptical of how good happy cow makes Ubud sound

Anyone been and got any particular recomendations? Mostly those that are easy to find from your typical tourist places.

[Linnéa76]

I've no advice I'm afraid but I've heard Bali's great for vegan food. I'm going there next year so I'll be interested in the results of your investigations (and pictures of course)!

[blinki]

So far I'm not finding it particularly vegan friendly. Around Kuta most places will have 3-4 veggie options, none of which are vegan. I think there might be more in the Indonesian section of menus but the staff dont always speak enough English to say what they are. I keep meaning to take a photo of a menu to google the dishes to see if any are always vegan.

I've been to Tasty Vegan in Seminyak and Happy Budha in Kuta and both are very cheap and filling though nothing amazing. There's good falafel places in Kuta and Seminyak but the serving size can be a bit lacking and again nothing special for taste.


ETA: a woman walked past me in a vegan.si tshirt so I felt the need to stop her to ask where she has been eating. It seems around here it's all about Seminyak and mostly being in Kuta is my problem.

ETA2: I'll edit as I go cause otherwise my memory gets jumbled. Ubud is awesome, though it is inexplicable full of Italians, my tan must be getting good because a few times locals have spoke to me in Italian then been quite amused by how much better their Italian is than mine.

I'd say it has as many vegan/friendly places as Glasgow (if that means anything to you) but given the size difference that's impressive and the happy cow listings are good. But you wouldn't even need to look at happy cow, you could just wander around and you'd find something pretty easy. Even non-veggie places often have a full page veggie menu which something will at least be able to be made vegan. I've had plenty of entirely decent good and some weird ice cream (it made my lips and tongue feel funny) but the one really good thing was breakfast at Sopa, I didn't know scrambled tofu could be so good.

I'm also in love with corn flavoured tortilla crisps and found widely available vegan chocolate- it's red and kit kat shaped with 'bitter sweet' across it in, in all proper sized supermarkets (not the smaller convenience stores) and good except it has the higher melting point which is weird if you are used to cold place chocolate (you can get the European fancy dark chocolates in a few places at silly prices too)

If you go to Kintamani (which you should) then Sari Restaurant is a decent choice for lunch. The buffet has plenty vegan options but is overpriced- 125k where as I pay 35-50 most meals- with average food. But the view is worth paying for and I ate 3 big plates so it worked out decent value. The waitresses seem to know it is over priced, we were sceptical when told the price, acted rather hesitant but went for it then when paying the waitress offered us 110k each, we said we'd paid as a group and got it for 100k.

Luwak coffee/kopi luwak is never vegan, even if as black coffee. The beans are eaten by a civet (a little cat like animal) first and they live in cages on the plantations.

Lovina is sort of in between Kuta and Ubud in terms of food options. There's one veggie place which is good but over priced but almost everywhere has something that can be vegan on their menu. But they are into cock fighting, you're unlikely to wander accidentally to an actual fight but you might find some being made to spar a bit on a quiet street. I got invited to a few but I don't think they would invite women.

All food everywhere is cooked when ordered so they don't mind taking things out and they don't really use diary. I'd always specify no egg and no (prawn) crackers because they have an odd habit of turning up unannounced on he side of your plate.

[blinki]

some pictures, not that I take the best


a monkey at Ubud monkey forest. The monkeys are wild and seem to live a pretty happy life, it's well staffed to prevent any human/monkey incidents and the staff are good with them


Campuhan Ridge in Ubud- I don't read hippy blogs, just found it through google and it has by far the best info for finding it. However, I'd not second the idea of wandering off in the long grass if you don't know what to do about snakes. It's worth making the effort to get up early, it was 11 by the time I was walking back and I was horribly sweaty


the obligatory rice terrace photo


the view from Sari Restaurant




If you happen to be stopping in Singapore, it's awesome. I've not been to much of SE Asia but I'm pretty sure it should be considered the vegan capital of SE Asia, maybe all of Asia. There's a whole shopping centre of almost all veggie places and cold cups of soy milk everywhere. The 3in1 instant coffee in my hostel even has non-dairy creamer. Lovely place in general too, anyone who does Singapore in just a stop over is seriously missing out.

[silver]

Nice report, although no use to me as I don't see myself visiting Bali. (But I like reading about it

I like the way you have a consistant 15º tilt to the right with your camera.

[Linnéa76]

Good info, thanks blinki! I'm looking forward to going there.

[quote="silver"]I like the way you have a consistant 15º tilt to the right with your camera.

[quote="blinki"][quote="silver"]I like the way you have a consistant 15º tilt to the right with your camera.

[JS]

Oo I visited Bali many many moons ago and from memory I loved all of it apart from Kuta. Kuta was awful!! I was veggie there so enjoyed lots of food and sadly I'm not sure I was really aware of vegans back then! I spent a fair few days in Ubud and then a few up in Lovina (very black beaches) with random cows and chickens! At the hotel there were these 3 ducks which were right little characters we called the 3 stooges as you often couldn't see them but you could hear them as they walked through the resort grounds pulling and pecking at each other as they walked along - quack quack quack quaaaackk - very entertaining! And yeah the cock fighting - we got asked by our driver if we wanted to go and he almost seemed disappointed we said no. Overall the Balinese people are very friendly and we had a great holiday. I would love to go back sometime.

[blinki]

When I was asked to cock fights they were curious why not but all seemed to find it quite reasonable that I like animals so don't want to see them get hurt. Though one guy thought I was weird for going to Lovina and not wanting to see cock fights or go out to see dolphins (I saw plenty dolphin and whales in Australia). Never saw any cows there though but iris the only place I had proper hassle from dogs.


Two other tips that have occurred to me thati never got off guides. In kuta when negotiating a price at a stall they ask if you are Australian, I think that's a proxy for have you been here before/ do you know what things should cost so claim you are. Only use commonwealth and ANZ ATMs if you can, they won't eat your card over a failed connection.