The Bali trip from hell.
This time we’re throwin it back to September of 2022 when I yes girled so hard I went to Bali, Indonesia for 5 weeks solo. If you were in my world on social at that time you know how absolutely nuts this trip was.
And we’re about to relive it here together right now. How fun!!
Don’t say I never did anything for you. 
This was a trip from hell. Definitely the craziest trip I’ve ever had and not in a fun way. Before we get into it, a little backstory.
2022 was a jam packed year.
We started off strong with the whole Mexico/Costa Rica trip.
Then I went back to Costa Rica with my group of guy friends in May.
Then I went to EDC Las Vegas also in May.
Then I went to LA to see my friend Elin in July who I had met on the first trip to Costa Rica where we became really close. She’s from Sweden but was in LA for the summer which is less than a 3 hour flight from me so of course I had to go see her.
Then I worked my ass off all summer to save for this Bali trip. I was SO excited to go to Bali. It had been on my vision boards since I was in high school. I really wanted my Eat Pray Love moment, ya know?
Well I did a lot of praying but that’s about it.
Kidding, I did make a really good friend there too who I am so grateful to have met for many reasons you will soon find out.
There was some good that came out of that trip, but most of it was crap. Literally.
Anyway..
I can’t describe the feeling of wanting to travel to a place for so long and then finally arriving there. I had tears in my eyes before we even hit the runway. It’s really one of the most amazing feelings ever. The anticipation of what you’ll experience, the “I made it” feeling… unreal.
I also can’t describe the level of disappointment I felt after wanting to go to a place for so long, finally going there, and then it not being what you wanted or expected.
I had a lot of expectations placed on this trip, which turned into a big learning experience for me.
When things go sideways, I always choose to look for the lessons or the positive takeaways from the experience.
You can make it mean something or you can make it mean nothing. It’s your choice.
I did a bit of research before this trip. I knew roughly what areas I wanted to visit and where I wanted to start out.
So I booked my first stay in Canggu, which is kind of the most populated hub of travellers. Lots of restaurants, lots of bars, lots of places to stay. It’s on the beach but not the typical Bali beach you’re used to seeing. Those beaches are not the main areas of the island, they’re farther out. This beach was black. But not the cute black like Hawaiian black sand… Like yucky, dirty, don’t wanna swim there black.
Something you should know about Bali if you’re planning to go is that it is the epitome of that instagram vs. reality trend. From one direction it’s beautiful, amazing, and picturesque. But the rest of the surroundings are ugly. A lot of construction. A lot of garbage. (Especially in these busy areas.) Bali is only picturesque in certain areas.
This trip was hot fire garbage.. There was a lot that happened within the span of the 5 weeks I was there. Here are the cliff notes so this doesn’t turn into an absolute novel.
Upon my arrival to Bali, I made friends with a bunch of people at the hostel I was at! So glad to have met (most of) them…
I became close with two girls in particular, Hebe from New Zealand (little did we know what a ride we were about to embark on together), the other girl was from Norway, let’s call her Sara.
(You already know it’s gonna be bad cause I’m giving her a fake name lol)
Some shit things that happened on this trip:
- Sara meets boy from the island on tinder, she stops hanging out with us. Rude.
- I get a nasty sun burn and my whole forehead peels off
- I meet different boy from the island, we kiss at bar, he tells me he has to go home to his WIFE and BABY !!!
- Sara and Hebe and I go for a sunrise volcano hike to see an amazing view. It rains and is totally fogged in. We hiked 2.5 hrs up a volcano at 3am for no view. Sick. (See photo below)
More not awesome things that happened on this trip:
- We do mushrooms and Sara has a bad trip and is super fucking annoying
- Sara ditches me on my birthday for said boy after staying in the villa I got for my bday for free and leaves a huge mess behind. Doesn’t even say goodbye. Very rude. Fuck you Sara.
- I have a hard time making new friends at new hostel in new area, I’m not having a great time, struggling mentally at this point
Also, my visa was going to run out before I wanted to go home so I had to renew it. I hired a guy to take me across the island to my next location and go to the visa office on the way.
On arrival you get a 4 week visa. I wanted to stay for 5.
Why did I bother to go through all of this to stay in Bali one more week?
My birthday was coming up. I wanted to stay until just after my birthday because Elin (who I mentioned earlier) was studying in Singapore at the time and we were planning for her to come to Bali for the weekend for my birthday since it’s so close by.
I realize how insane this sounds as I am writing.. but Elin and I are not just regular friends. We are soul friends. Since meeting in Costa Rica early 2022, we have met up in different places in the world 3 different times, one of which was me visiting her hometown in Sweden.
Anyway back to whatever the fuck I was saying..
I hired this man to drive me across the island and take me to the visa office to get that sorted along the way.
Literally thank GOD for this man because I don’t think I would have gotten through this day without him.
HOT TIP: if you have to do some annoying shit like go to a visa office and travel across the island, hire a local to take you. Especially in places where you don’t speak the language and it’s relatively cheap to hire someone for the day, it’s SO useful, he helped me so much.
When we arrived at the visa office they were on lunch break so we had to wait for a bit. I took my driver to get ice cream and while I was eating the ice cream I was starting to not feel so hot.
I just felt really off. Like almost nausea but not quite.
I did the whole office thing and we got outta there, back on the road to Uluwatu which was still a bit of a drive away.
If you know anything about Bali you’ll know how crazy busy it is. The traffic is insane. The scooters are everywhere. Everyone is accelerating and weaving and slamming on brakes. It’s not a smooth ride anywhere.
I start feeling really sick.
I sometimes get car sick though, so I just thought it was that since we had been in like 4 hours of crazy traffic at that point.
I was just looking forward to getting to the place I was staying, being able to lay down and relax, get some food and go to sleep.
I had been in hostel bunks for 3 weeks at this point so I booked myself a private room at a hostel to have some privacy for a night or two… Thank god I did.
I didn’t realize how much I would need that private bathroom.
The plan was to spend a night or two at this place and then meet up with Hebe again and stay together.
I get to the hostel and get in my room and it’s totally horrible. It looks nothing like the photos online. It’s dirty, stained, grimy, the whole bathroom is the shower??? And there’s a hole in the ceiling above the shower that looks right up at the sky… like there’s supposed to be a light fixture there but it’s just a giant gaping hole instead. Nice.
At this point I didn’t even have the energy to care. I just needed food and needed to get in bed no matter how badly I did NOT want to sleep there, I would deal with it tomorrow and move somewhere else.
There was a little restaurant right next door so I walked over there and got dinner.
While eating my food I had a feeling that I would be seeing it again later. I was right.
Soon after getting back to my room from dinner I was experiencing violent nausea.
I’m not usually a puker. Only when I’ve had way too much tequila.. but this was wild. I have never experienced projectile vomit quite like this before.
I had my head in the toilet for the rest of the night. It was absolutely awful.
Meanwhile I’m messaging Hebe who’s still back at the hostel we met at. We were supposed to meet up the next day, but she was saying she was really sick too.
We both had Bali Belly at the same time even though we hadn’t seen each other in a week.
I woke up the next morning still feeling sick as fuck but not puking anymore, so I decided to move myself to somewhere more comfortable.
I found a decent hotel that was not super far from where I currently was. It was more money than I planned on spending but I was sick as fuck and I just wanted comfort for a couple nights before going back to hostel life.
I go to the hotel, Hebe is still too sick to come meet me but she tells me she’ll come the next day if she’s doing ok. I spent the night alone in the hotel.
Now my illness has progressed from coming out of the top end to coming out the bottom end if you know what I mean…
I was weak, dehydrated, shaking, could barely eat, shitting an abnormal amount. It was rough.
The next day Hebe comes to the hotel to stay with me.
She tells me I’ll never guess what happened to her last night.
She ended up getting a private room at the hostel because she was so sick.
She says that the craziest thing happened in the middle of the night.
She shit herself in bed.
I’m laughing so hard because this is tragic and hilarious and insane.
I completely understand how that could happen though. If you’ve ever had Bali Belly, you know what it’s like. It’s so wild, you basically lose control of your butt.
You know how when pregnant women laugh too hard a little pee might come out?
Yeah, same vibe.
So I’m making fun of this poor girl who just shit herself in bed last night, joking around saying “well, don’t shit the bed again tonight” since now we’re sharing a queen bed.
Plot twist… she doesn’t shit the bed.
I do. Twice.
I wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I peed myself. I was wearing shorts.
I get up and realize it isn’t pee.
Yeah.
So I’m washing my shorts out in the sink trying not to wake Hebe up. I go back to bed and check the sheets to make sure they’re still clean. The shorts held everything in, thank god.
I put some underwear on and go back to sleep.
We wake up in the morning and I get up and fluff the bedding to make the bed and I see a mark on the sheets where I was laying…
???
I put the blankets down and stare wide eyed at Hebe.
She looks confused. “What..”
I go to the bathroom and check my underwear.
Guess who shit the bed again and DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE…
So I tell her about what happened last night and that I must have done it again this morning.
We’re laughing so hard I’m concerned if I’m not careful there will be a third time.
Now I have to deal with the shits. I mean sheets.. I strip the bed and call the desk asking for them to bring new sheets.
Housekeeping comes to the door and insists on changing them for us. I insist on taking the clean sheets and doing it myself. There’s a language barrier. She’s very confused.
Meanwhile my dirty sheets are rolled up on the floor in the corner.
It was quite a day.
We were both so sick for the next couple days. We took care of each other.
And now we have an unbreakable bond.
I mean, how many people can you say you shit the bed with? Exactly.
While laying around sick in that hotel room, I decided to take to social media to share my embarrassing story as I do best.
I made a TikTok about getting Bali belly and having to change my shitty sheets.
That video is my most viewed video on TikTok by a landslide with 546.4K views when I checked it just before starting to write this.
And it still gets new views and likes daily. That was 2 years ago.
So next time you’re feeling down, just remember that over half a million people know about the time I shit the bed in Bali.
It was a horrible time. Do not recommend.
I honestly don’t know why people go to Bali, for many reasons, but this one is enough for me to never go there again. Just go to Thailand. It’s better.
Today while I’m writing this, I was chatting with Hebe, reminiscing about this crazy experience we had together telling her I’m writing about it.. and she’s actually in Bali right now, again.
And she said she was feeling sick. Like the beginning stages of Bali belly. Again.
I told her I was gonna write this in here cause it just adds even more to this story.
Sending thoughts and prayers to her and I hope she doesn’t end up shitting the bed this time.
Update a few days later from when I wrote this whole post… she ended up getting full on Bali Belly again but successfully did not shit the bed this time so I guess that’s a win?
Love you Hebe, shit sisters forever <3
I hope you’ve enjoyed me aggressively oversharing on the internet.
Let this be a lesson that sometimes being a yes girl can get you in some pretty crappy situations.
I’m sorry, I had to. One last time.
Ok bye
xo Bailey
