INDONESIA 2020 – FOR THE BOOKS

Day 0 and 1: Arrival in Bali and visit to Ulun Datu, Handara Gate, and two of the most beautiful waterfalls on the island.

We arrived in Bali exhausted and headed north to the Munduk area, about three hours away by car. There we spent the night at the Puri Sunset Homestay.

The next day we woke up early and started off with enthusiasm! The day was going to be quite long. We started by visiting the Balinese temple (first and last). We spent about an hour with the temple to ourselves, were lucky enough to witness a local ceremony, and then headed to the next spot, a five-minute van ride away: the famous Handara Gate, a typical Balinese gateway.

Being a little later, we had to wait in line a bit, but hey, there's not much to explore, so we took the 4 photos we went for and headed to the next spot, the Leke Leke waterfall. The jungle adventure began!

It was barely 11 a.m. and we were in the middle of our third shoot of the day—we were on fire! The path to Leke Leke is beautiful and only takes 15 minutes, and the rewards are spectacular! But like all spectacular, easily accessible sites, I recommend going early in the morning to avoid crossing paths and have the waterfall all to yourselves!

We finished shooting at the waterfall and ate at the restaurant right at the entrance. The vegetarian burger was highly recommended! We rested a bit and headed to the last location of the day, NungNung.

It's one of the largest and most voluminous waterfalls in Bali; it's simply unique. The trail is a bit more complicated than that of Leke Leke, and it's also recommended to go early in the morning to avoid the crowds. It's the most famous of all Bali's waterfalls and is usually quite crowded.

**Around 10am the light comes in just behind the waterfall and it's impressive, highly recommended to go at that time if you want perfect light!

After a well-deserved swim in the waterfall, we returned to Ubud, had dinner at Rai Pasti Rice View, a restaurant with views of the rice fields and a great value, and rested until the next day. The first day had been very intense (as were all the days before, haha).

Day 2. Double failure to visit Tegalalang Rice fields and heading to Nusa Penida.

We woke up early, before the sun, around 5am, and headed to the first location of the day, the Tegalalang rice fields. Those typical Instagram drone photos? They're from there. On the way, it started raining really hard, and we arrived so early that there weren't any bars or restaurants open to wait for it to stop, so we decided to go back to Ubud, have breakfast there, and try again later. The second time we made it to the fields, but after walking for five minutes, it started raining again, and it didn't look like it was going to stop, so we took the opportunity to create some content about JAMBO's waterproofing, which, by the way, held up like a champion!

That rain didn't look like it was going to stop (one of the disadvantages of going to Bali during monsoon season), so we decided to cancel the shooting sessions we had planned for that day and save time by heading to our next destination, Nusa Penida.

**For those of you who want to visit the Tegalalang rice fields, they work like this: there's a path that passes through all the fields, but each plot belongs to a different harvester, and each time you pass a new one, they ask for a donation for maintenance. So, I recommend bringing plenty of small bills so you don't have to pay 100k IDR (€8) at each plot, because 1, 2, or 5k is enough. (I say 100k because that's the bills given out at moneychangers and ATMs.)

Anyway, we took a taxi to Sanur, and from there, a boat to the island. We arrived after lunch, relaxed at the hostel, and watched the sunset from the beach with a few beers. Clearly, it hadn't been our day, so we took it easy and went to bed early because we had to get up early the next day! The hostel was called Full Moon, and I couldn't recommend it enough! The rooms are nice, and they have concerts at night that you can't miss.

Day 3: Kling Kling beach, Diamond Beach and -1 drone.

We woke up before the sun, as usual, and took the first photo shoot on the beach. We had breakfast and took the bikes to go to one of the most famous beaches on Instagram, if not the most famous, KlingKling beach!

** A good place to rent scooters is Abdul Scooter. It's next to the port and the guy speaks very good English. You can find him on Google Maps.
**Highly recommended to go to KlingKling early or late in the day to avoid all the cars coming from Bali on day tours. During peak season, there can be up to two-hour lines to see the beach, plus the sun is deadly. So if you have a choice, don't even think about it!

Fortunately or unfortunately, I had been to that beach four years earlier, when there was nothing and no one there, and the change seemed dramatic. When I went for the first time, the cliff overlooking the beach was almost impossible to reach because of the amount of vegetation. It was noon, and I was completely alone. This time, it seemed like a completely different place; there were more than 15 restaurants around the cliff, you had to wait in line for half an hour to take a photo with the beach in the background, and they had even made a path to get down to the beach… Wow.

We shot Kling Kling and headed to the next spot, Diamond Beach, on the other side of the island. The road connecting the two beaches is spectacular, one of the most beautiful on the island, especially the last stretch! We arrived at Diamond Beach and started flying the drone to get some panoramic shots. Five minutes later, it got stuck high in a tree. With the help of a bamboo branch, we managed to bring it down, but not without breaking the stabilizer and one of the legs… Bali 1 – BB team 0.

Thank goodness we brought another one just in case! We swam until dark, and just as we got out, four or five dolphins passed very close to the shore—amazing! With adrenaline pumping, we grabbed the bikes and headed home, without a drone, but very satisfied with the day of shooting we'd had.

Day 4. Back to Bali, we ran out of gas and almost missed the flight to Java.

The next day we woke up early and took the boat back to Bali. I recommend staying at least another day in Nusa Penida and also visiting Broken Beach and Crystal Bay. If you're going between May and October, take a boat for 200k IDR per person to snorkel with manta rays; it's incredible. The fishermen who take you are right in Crystal Bay, and you can book overnight or even on the same day, so don't worry about booking in advance.


We took the boat back to Bali and a taxi to Canggu, a small town that has little Balinese flavor, as it's full of shops opened by Australians who spend long periods in Indonesia. It's the perfect place to change up your diet and get away from nasi goreng (chicken and rice), and to learn how to surf. A great place in Canggu for breakfast/lunch is Crate Caffe; the food is delicious and very reasonably priced! We ate there and then looked for a scooter rental place to do a session on the beach. It wasn't easy since many people didn't want to let us rent our scooters so we wouldn't get them covered in sand, but we found a place nearby: 35 Pantai Batu Bolong St, Dalung, Bali, where they rented us scooters without any problem. So we grabbed the scooters and went straight to the beach—to one 2km north of Batu Balong Beach, to avoid the crowds. We were there for two hours, driving around and being a bit crazy... we ran out of gas and were about to miss our 9 p.m. flight to Java, but in the end everything worked out and we flew to Java that night.

We arrived in Surabaya around 10 pm and from there we took a taxi that took us to Malang, where we arrived around 1 am at the MADOR Malang hostel, very close to Rainbow Village, the place we were going to go the next day.

Day 5: We visit Rainbow Village, crash the spare drone and get lost to get to Wonokitri, a village that lives among volcanoes .

We woke up calmly, as we'd been through a lot these past few days, and looked for a place for breakfast. It was actually quite difficult, since Malang isn't a touristy city at all, and it's hard to find a place where rice isn't the only option for breakfast. In the end, we found a place quite close by called Java Dancer Coffee, which is highly recommended. We finished breakfast and headed straight to Rainbow Village, so named for its colorfully painted houses. Painting them was an initiative of the neighborhood's students to attract tourists, and they've succeeded. They charge €1 entrance per person and it's another source of income for the neighborhood, and we gladly decided to do our part.

I'd like to share some drone photos of the houses below because they look so beautiful from above, but do you know the reality? While we were flying the drone, it fell into the river—a deep, brown river that was completely inaccessible. So we lost the spare drone with the Rainbow Village equipment just two days later, with many days still to go. It was a hard blow for everyone.

We returned to the hostel and packed our bags. We looked for a drone shop in Malang and found two, but neither had what we were looking for. So we decided to do the next two days of sessions without a drone and buy one once in Surabaya, giving us more time to ask around and go for a spot of shooting.

After going to two stores to try to buy the drone and then looking for a taxi to take us to the Bromo volcano area (with five people plus luggage, most cars were too small), we finally left Malang around 10 p.m. After a full day, we were dozing off after just one minute of travel. I woke up an hour later, and everyone was still asleep. I looked at the map and realized the taxi was taking us in the wrong direction, and the worst part was that he didn't understand a word of English. We managed to get him to understand that he wasn't following the wrong direction, but the guy insisted it was that way. In the end, after a few restaurant visits, we managed to convince him to listen to the map and not his intuition, and we headed for Wonokitri, a village with barely 20 houses very close to King Kong Point, the place where we were going to see the sunrise the next day.

Four hours later, around 2 a.m., we arrived at the hostel, but there was no sign of the receptionist who was supposed to be waiting for us (we had warned him we would arrive around that time). But hey, in case you haven't noticed, nothing in Indonesia ever goes as planned; you just have to accept it and adapt, even if it's a bit difficult at first. Eventually, the hostel guy showed up, we checked in, and went to sleep for a while, since we were supposed to wake up at 4 a.m. to watch the sunrise in one of the most incredible places in the world!

Day 6: A rude awakening, dreamy views before breakfast, and the journey to Coban Sewu.

The alarm clock rang, and it felt like we'd barely slept 10 minutes. We woke up tired but eager, and the sky was overcast and very dark. We took the Jeep we'd booked through the hostel (Bromo Backpacker Tosari) and headed toward King Kong Hill. We arrived at the entrance to the national park in a sea of ​​fog that couldn't have looked worse, but we still paid the entrance fee (€12 per person, the most expensive of the entire trip) and headed up... don't say we didn't try!

We reached the top and there was already some light. The sun had about 20 minutes left until sunrise. Blurred in the background, we could see the silhouette of the Bromo volcano, and beyond that, that of Ijen... we could even see Mount Agung (Bali's tallest volcano). We were above the clouds.

It was simply magical; the conditions were perfect. The light was unbeatable, the low clouds created beams of light that crossed the palm branches, and the smoke emitted by the volcanoes took on the reddish color of dawn... without a doubt, one of the best sunrises of our lives.


We spent over two hours taking photos and enjoying the views before returning to the village. Our initial plan was to descend into the Bromo crater for another photo op, but it happened to be closed for environmental restoration from January 24th to February 24th, so we were left wanting more, although we found it completely understandable given the influx of tourists Bromo receives throughout the year.

We took a team photo and headed back to the hostel. We had a leisurely breakfast and, without stopping, headed for our next destination, Coban Sewu, about four hours south. Coban Sewu is a deep, lush canyon filled with vegetation, cascading through a unique waterfall system. It's, for me, the most epic waterfall I've ever visited.

We arrived at night, it was a small town, there were only 2 hostels available to book online, we stayed at Dear Traveller Guest House and Glamping
And I couldn't recommend it more. The owner was very nice; since the supermarket was two kilometers from the hostel, he took us in his pickup truck to buy some beers, and the next day he took us to the waterfalls himself at no extra cost. He also arranged a taxi for us back to Surabaya to catch our flight... we honestly couldn't have left there happier.

Anyway, we slept very comfortably, and of course, we got up early the next day. We wanted to have the place to ourselves, and we got it.

Day 7: We visited the most epic waterfalls in the entire country, and paid a premium to secure a drone for the last few days of the trip.

We arrived at Coban Sewu waterfalls around 6:30 in the morning, and after descending into the canyon for half an hour, we reached the foot of the falls without meeting a single person.

We completed the shoot in a couple of hours and started heading back to the hostel around 9:30.
If you have time, I recommend exploring the canyon a little further, as it has caves called Goa Tetes that are worth visiting, as well as some more waterfalls that you definitely won't want to miss!

We arrived at the hostel, had breakfast, and took the taxi back to Surabaya around 11:30 a.m. We had a flight at 6:30 p.m., which was about a five-hour flight away, so we had plenty of time. We arrived in Surabaya around 3:00 p.m. and went straight to the drone shop we'd previously contacted to check if they had what we wanted (the Mavic 2 Pro) in stock. We arrived around 3:30 p.m., and the airport was about an hour away. The shop was in a shopping center, so we scrambled up and down the stairs to find it. We found it. They had the drone. We were ready to pay... BUT, they didn't accept any cards, and we didn't have enough cash, so we had no choice but to go to the other shop in town, which was also on the way to the airport.

We arrived at the other store around 5 p.m. Time was getting tight, and we needed to buy it quickly, so we checked they had the one we wanted, paid successfully, and then sped off to the airport! There was half an hour until our flight was due to depart, and we were just arriving at the domestic terminal. We arrived and went straight to the counters. There, they told us that AirAsia operates in the international terminal even though it's a domestic flight, so we looked for another taxi and headed to the other terminal. It was 5:45 p.m. We arrived, and the flight had been delayed by an hour (for no particular reason; it happens often in Indonesia). We went to the AirAsia counter. There, they told us we'd missed our flight, and that even if it was delayed, the system wouldn't accept any more check-ins. What a bummer, in all its letters! We paid a high price to have a drone for the last few days of our trip. There was no other option, we bought a flight for the next morning directly to Komodo, and that night we slept in Surabaya near the airport.

Day 8: We started sailing through the Sea of ​​Flores and experienced an unforgettable moment.


The next day, we arrived at the airport first, as expected... we didn't want to take any chances, haha. We arrived in Komodo around 12 noon and went straight to the port to find a boat that would accommodate us for the night and take us on a tour of the Flores Sea. It was easy to find, since the taxi driver who took us from the airport to Labuan Bajo (the coastal town from where all the boats depart) introduced us to his friend, who happened to own a boat and did tours of the islands. It often happens!

It's a very expensive experience for Indonesia. To give you an idea, we paid around €100 per person for one night on the boat with all meals included. It was definitely the most expensive part of the trip, but also the most worthwhile.

Between going to the market to buy food, the crew arriving, and preparing the boat for the tour, we ended up leaving at 4 p.m. We spoke with the captain to clarify the price and route we wanted to take, and we headed to our first and only stop of the day, Kelor Island, to watch the sunset.

We did a shoot and flew the new drone successfully. The shots we got from there were amazing, and that alone made it worth it.

Around 7 p.m. we returned to the boat, showered, and headed to Padar Island, where we were going to spend the night. The trip was quite an experience: the bioluminescent plankton glowed electric blue as the boat moved through the water, the sky was starry, and the Milky Way was visible like never before; it was incredible. We were just arriving when we suddenly started seeing blue shadows emerging to the surface... yes, they were dolphins, and with their movement, they lit up the water, turning it electric blue. Something my fellow travelers will never forget... because I was showering at that very moment and didn't see anything!

Anyway, we arrived at Padar Island and went to sleep. I climbed onto the mattress and slept while looking at the stars. Cabins aren't my thing.



Day 9: Another epic sunrise, another broken drone.

We woke up early, around 5am, and the captain took us by boat to the beach where the excursion began. It was about a half-hour climb to reach the point from where you can see 3 beaches and the best panoramic view of Padar.

It was strange to think that just two days ago we were on another island with a landscape of volcanoes that had nothing to do with what we were seeing...

We flew the drone, shot for an hour, and returned to the boat. We went for a swim, had some delicious pancakes for breakfast, and headed to Pink Beach, our next destination!

The beauty of Pink Beach is the colors of the sea, as well as the reddish sand. We decided to stay on the boat and film action footage, jumping and snorkeling a bit. If you're not filming, I recommend going to the beach; it's also very beautiful.

We continued toward the Sandbar, a beach that emerges from the coral reef in the middle of the sea, with nothing at all. We were alone for half an hour, and it was the closest thing to a tropical paradise we'd seen so far. We did a little snorkeling, saw turtles, rays, and even a shark!

Still freaking out, we headed to our final destination: Kanawa Island.

Exhausted from all the stress we'd endured, we only had the strength to have a beer and watch the sunset, commenting on how intense and epic the trip had been. We'd been sleeping an average of five hours for eight days and had visited three completely different islands in just one week—insanity. We missed a flight, crashed three drones, saw dolphins, ran out of gas in the middle of a beach, witnessed the most beautiful sunrise in the world... but what makes a trip truly special are the people we shared it with. We had our good times and some tougher ones, but we made the best of every situation.

We all agreed that it was the best time we'd had in Indo-Pacific, and back in Bali the next day, before heading to the airport, we all decided to get a tattoo, just because, damn it, because the situation deserved it! And with two balls, we made an X as a souvenir of this great adventure.

Indonesia BB Trip 2020 – For the books.