Bali in December: heavy rain and traffic jams! Critical review of my trip to Bali for Christmas

Last updated on February 7th, 2017

In this post, I’ll tell you about my trip to Bali in December with heavy rain and tons of traffic jams.

Imagine being one week in Bali for Christmas? What comes to your mind? White sandy beaches and honeymoon paradise? Then look up for some photos in Google… What do you see? Amazing jungle, paradise beaches, infinity pools! Yes, exactly, my expectations before the trip were very high.

But… when we actually got there… I was really disappointed. I need to warn you that this post is my personal opinion and many might not agree with it. Nor would agree a friend of mine, with whom we went to Bali 2 years ago. My friend was impressed and I was disappointed. Two different people – two different opinions, I guess.

But recently, I started to encounter people who got the same impression of Bali – disappointment. So I decided to write this post in order to…. “open the eyes” of many people. Maybe somebody will even change their trip plans because of what he/she will find out. Maybe not. Who knows. But my conscience won’t we guilty because I’ll know that I had warned my readers.

As I already mentioned, I went to Bali in December around 2 years ago for a week. Unfortunately, it was the rain season there: and yes, it was raining 4 days out of 7. And raining A LOT. Walking without an umbrella wasn’t possible at all. That I didn’t expect and was really disappointed. Though honestly, Bali, doesn’t lose much, if it rains, because it’s not a white-sandy-beach paradise. Bali is about visiting thousands of temples, coffee, and rice plantations and jungles. The problem is, I wanted a holiday on the beach: you know, a resort, great buffet and so on. But this holiday was nothing like that.

We stayed in Sanur. Sanur is a popular place with many hotels and more or less nice beaches. Though, surprisingly, the water in the ocean didn’t look clean. That’s why we didn’t swim much (and because of heavy rains, too, of course). Our hotel, Oasis Lagoon Sanur, was actually great! We had a room on the ground floor with the access to swimming pool (you just open a “balcony door” and the pool is just 1 step away (that was incredible). Our room was great too, however, the request of two single beds wasn’t accepted.

Our hotel had its private beach, which, however, was 15 minutes away. The breakfasts were okay but at the same time a little bit weird. But I guess having fish soup, rice, and fried noodles for breakfast is a very Asian thing.

Since we had 6 full days in Bali, we wanted to see as much as possible. Even though our budget wasn’t really very high (around 300-400$ for a week per person), we managed to do a lot of things.

Things to do in Bali in December

First of all, we went rafting! That’s probably the coolest thing you can do in Bali in December! (Well, if you aren’t a surfer, of course). However, it might be a little bit too extreme for some people.

Secondly, we went to the Safari park. It was a big disappointment because there wasn’t much to see. The only part I liked were some pretty old rides: nothing compared to Disneyland or Six flags but at least something to do in the park.

Moreover, we hired a taxi to experience the nightlife in Kuta. The place was really crazy. Everybody on the street was offering us drugs and it was pretty annoying (I’m strongly against drugs). That also means there is a huge market for drugs on Kuta, which is kind of sad. We found a more or less quiet sports bar and spent the evening there.

For the rest of the days, we hired a driver to drive us around Bali and show us the most famous and interesting spots. It was really raining a lot and we had been stuck in traffic probably 30% of the time we had assigned for sightseeing but we still managed to see a lot.

We went to Ubud (rice terraces were pretty amazing) as well as the temple full of monkeys. Monkeys were quite aggressive but I still managed to snap a selfie with one of them.

Luwak coffee plantation:

On one of the few sunny days, we went to Uluwatu.

Volcano (which wasn’t visible due to mist). That’s pretty much all what we managed to see.

Waterfall.

Tanah Lot (The weather was especially terrible there).

And celebrated Christmas in Bali in an Italian restaurant with live music.

Well, to summarise, I must admit that Bali is unique and not similar to anything I’ve seen before. However, I was really disappointed by the weather in Bali in December: when it rains, it rains heavily it might ruin your plans. Also, Bali in December (or maybe its Bali for Christmas) is very crowded and has terrible traffic problems: be ready to stay up to 2-3 hours in a traffic jam. There are not many places where you could swim and beaches don’t look like tropical paradise AT ALL. They are actually overcrowded and dirty. And finally, avoid going to Bali in December, if your trip is less than 7 days – it’s a waste of your time and money.

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