Eating, Marketing, Massaging, Beach Bumming, Ring-making & Surfing in Canggu, Bali
- alaughingseal
- Dec 31, 2019
- 7 min read
Canggu, situated on the south coast of Bali, is a food haven for the greedy, and a more exclusive location for the ones seeking for some peace and tranquility. Canggu is also famous for its strong waves in Batu Bolong Beach and Echo Beach for surfing enthusiasts! Also known for the Canggu Shortcut, one can easily scoot around in a Scoopy.
Travel period: December 2019
As I've been to Bali several times, my aim for this trip wasn't to chase tourist attractions, it was more to relax! :)
During the 5 days in Canggu, there are basically only 6 things I aimed to do:
Try to have 6 meals a day (greedy!!!!!)
Visit markets
Massage!
Beach bumming
Ring-making
Surfing at Batu Bolong Beach (great for beginners!)
Waterbom Bali
Accommodation
We booked an accommodation on airbnb under Jing & Bukit Vista Hospitality Team. It was a great location, where our food places were merely 3-5 minutes rides away! Host was really friendly and helpful as well! They even have a washer and allowed us to wash our clothes there!
Sign up for airbnb here receive S$38 off your first stay!
Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, and eat!!!
While researching on where to eat, I was crazily taking notes on what kind of food was suggested and mentally grouped them according to Breakfast, Lunch, Tea Break & Dinner! I hope that categorising them here helps you with planning your food trail!
p.s. I know that I said I tried to eat 6 meals, but it wasn't easy HAHA 4 meals a day was pretty much the norm!
Breakfast
Hungry Bird (160,000 IDR for 2 drinks and 2 mains)
Cheap and nice coffee!
Crate Cafe (Benz Eggz & Brekkie Plate)
58,000 IDR for each breakfast set and their portions are huge!
Milu by Nook (MY FAVOURITE BREAKFAST PLACE!)
We ordered:
Milu’s Benedict (58,000IDR) - MUST TRY!!!!
Traditional Bagel (60,000IDR)
Milu’s ice coffee (35,000 IDR) MUST TRY!!!
Anti Oxidant (37,000 IDR)
Lunch
Warung Bu Mi
Famous for: potato croquette, corn fritters and yellow rice
Warung Local
Reasonably priced food despite looking touristy! Loved the interior design of the place!
Tea Break
Roti Canai Street Kitchen and Dining Room
A place to merely relax and get some drinks :)
Potato Head Beach Club
We ordered their Fish & Chips and Beef Burger. We managed to get a daybed (max 4 pax) in the end for a minimum spending of 750,000 IDR. Pretty decent given that there was 4 of us :)
La Brisa
Perfect ambience (you can read more about it below where we beach bummed!)
Impressive food that was reasonably priced - we ordered their big balm, fried squid and pork bun.
Dinner
The Wave (near Batu Bolong Beach)
Great place to watch the sunset without having to break the bank! We decided to read our books there while watching the sunset.
The Loft
Beautiful place with delicious food! We ordered chicken burger and creamy fettuccine for about 180,000IDR.
Naughty Nuri
Back for their famous ribs!
Black Sand Brewery
Great ambience for the night! We ordered yellow hamburgini, animal fries, corn with cheese for about 350,000 IDR. Yummy!!
Visiting their Markets
Note: La Laguna Gypsy Market was closed for renovation when we were there!
Love Anchor Market
Opened daily from 9am - 9pm. When we went there, it was pretty quiet and not many people were there. They do sell sustainable goods like metallic draws, organic soap bars, and etc!
Old Man's Market
Only opened every Saturday of every month, Old Man's Market has about 150 vendors selling organic skin care products, clothes, bikinis for ladies, food and many more! It was pretty crowded but it was still a great experience.
Samadi Organic Market
Cosy and small market, selling a variety of items from food, fruits, clothes to dog items!
Massaging
Due to time constraint (as I was permanently eating non stop), I could only massage twice :( I would totally recommend going to the two places (suggested by my friends!) - Therapy and Tonic Day Spa & Botanicals. They're both towards the pricier side - about 250,000IDR for an hour massage - but they are so worth it!
I tried the bamboo massage at Tonic Day Spa & Botanicals. I absolutely loved it because it was almost like a deep tissue massage but this time round, with a bamboo? To quote unquote my dearest friend, "I feel like dough".
Beach Bumming
What's not to love about beach bumming when you are one of the nicest beaches in Bali?! Other than beach bumming FOR FREE by the beach, you can explore going to these 2 places! We did research on other places like Finns Recreation Club, Omnia Beach Club and etc, but we felt that we weren't particularly excited about spending hundreds of dollars just for the sake of a daybed and for comfort.
The Lawn
The Lawn has different price points for different "relaxation" levels. If you'd like a daybed (up to 6 people), it would cost you about IDR 2 or 3 million on weekends (sorry couldn't remember as the idea was completely scrapped the moment I heard it!).
If you'd like cabanas by the beach (for 2), it would cost you about IDR 2 million! As we knew we would not be spending that much time at The Lawn, we decided to go for their normal seating area, without any minimum spending. That was the best decision made as we not only got to swim in their pool, we could also relax, read and chill under a shade without having the pressure to spend!
La Brisa
This has got to be my FAVOURITE place in Canggu! We met up with 2 friends to head to La Brisa for sunset and tea break/dinner and we absolutely loved it! They had a range of daybeds/sofas/bean bags which you can choose from, with different minimum spending. After much deliberation, and poor planning (tip: please book in advance!!!!), we were left with limited choices and we went ahead with a sofa (up to 4) with a minimum spending of IDR 1 million. That was pretty decent for 4, and pretty easy to hit, even that we spent close to 5 hours at La Brisa eating, drinking, playing card games and watching sunset!
Please read above (under Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, and eat!!!) to find out what food we ate!
We were there from 4pm - 9pm and we watched how La Brisa transformed from a chill and cool place to a dim, romantic and hippy place! This was the perfect place to watch the sunset and end our trip! :)
Ring-making at Canggu Jewellery Class
As I was on my honeymoon, my husband and I decided on hand-making rings as a momento for this trip. We went ahead with Canggu Jewellery Class and the price point was pretty decent - 125,000IDR for 2 (10 grams of silver). We learnt how these rings were made, and even though we were not given a chance to melt and prepare the silver, it was experiential just by watching! Tip: it would be great if you could go to the class with some ideas for your rings do you do not spend too much time having to google and brainstorm there!
The entire class took about 3 hours and we were proud of our products! We had to draw, carve and sandpaper our rings personally. The drawing and the carving wasn't as easy as it seems! In fact, it was really nerve-wrecking having to draw to perfection and attempt to carve it out!
Surfing at Batu Bolong Beach
There are mainly 2 beaches for surfing - Batu Bolong Beach or Echo Beach. Batu Bolong Beach is better for beginners as the waves aren't as huge, and they are easier to ride. Echo Beach, on the other hand, has slightly bigger waves and they can be pretty scary at times!
We rode to Batu Bolong Beach and parked near The Lawn and decided to learn surfing from Warung Kelapa Surf Canggu. There is a multitude of surf schools dotted along Batu Bolong Beach and you would be spoilt for choice! However, good news is that their prices are regulated! Here is what you should be expecting:
One-to-one coaching
350,000 IDR per person for 2 hours (inclusive of theory and shore lesson)
A rash guard to wear while surfing
Bonus: zinc oxide sunscreen (a super strong sunscreen to protect your face from the sun!)
Here is what you should bring for surfing:
Sunscreen (especially to put at the back of your legs if you aren't wearing leggings)
Leggings (if you have please wear them!!!)
Rash guard
Spare contact lenses/specs (in case your contact lenses drop off while surfing!)
After being burnt and surfing for about 2 hours, we finally understood why surfing was such a popular sport! Riding these waves are truly addictive, especially after being able to ride 1/2 waves at a go! For the price point in Canggu, and its friendly waves, I would reckon that it is definitely something to try!
Waterbom Bali
Waterbom Bali lived up to its name of Asia's Best Waterpark! As I was bent to enjoy Waterbom Bali without having the woe of carrying my GoPro around, I unfortunately did not take any pictures or videos. You could easily look it up!
Why do I love Waterbom Bali?
Cashless payments: you could top up money into a band, which could allow you to easily pay for food and additional rides - Flow Rider or Trampoline. Best part is that the leftover money is refundable, hence you need not worry about topping up too much cash!
Multi-use locker: most places I've been to only allow you to open their lockers once and subsequently you would need to pay to open it again. However in Waterbom Bali, you could open it as many times as you wanted with your wrist band! How cool is that!
Their rides - they had about 5-6 rides that were adrenaline pumping and it was truly what an adrenaline junkie, like myself, craves for! My favourite ride was Twin Racer! There are so much more rides which I really enjoyed like Boomerang!
What should you take note about your attire:
They are pretty strict regarding your attire as most of their rides are body slides. They only allow swimsuits and tights. My husband was wearing a dri-fit top and they did not allow that on most rides as they said that the shirt would slow him down. Hence, he was forced to hold onto it during the rides.
Secondly, you should not wear bottoms with metal rings (some board shorts have this small metal rings at the back of your shorts). They claim that these metal rings would scratch rides and they would not allow you to wear them. Eventually, we got them to remove the metal rings for us with the help of a scissors!
For ladies, you might want to think twice about wearing bikinis as some of the rides would cost you to drop into the water with a strong impact and that might cause your attire to ride up!
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