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Last updated: 13th December 2022
Indonesia is an archipelago (a collection of islands, about 16,000 of them in this case) and Bali is one of its larger islands that is extremely popular for travel because of its surreal beaches, cliffs, culture, food, and cheap prices.
Bali has been quite popular in the digital nomad trail in the last decade as it is very welcoming to expats and the ecosystem is built for easily working out of cafés, great & inexpensive food, and meeting people from all over the world. It did not help that Julia Roberts ends up going to Bali for the love bit in Eat, Pray, Love.
This guide is for Indians planning to do a workcation in Bali. This is not a travel guide.
Bali used to have a generous FREE visa on arrival policy pre-Covid. But they now charge 38 USD for visa on arrival which allows you to stay for 30 days. This is a tourist visa and can be extended by another 30 days after you come in to the island.
You can also pre-buy this visa online using any of your Indian cards. But you will not be able to skip the line at immigration. So there is no visible advantage of pre-paying for your visa.
You can use any of your Indian cards (if they are swipe-able in Indonesia) or pay in USD or IDR (Indonesian Rupiah).
Health Insurance
One of the recommended insurances locally was https://www.jagawisata.com/COVID19/ but you can also buy one from India, which is internationally accepted.
Covid Vaccination Requirements
If you are vaccinated (2 or 3 doses), you do not need to have a negative RT-PCR test anymore to arrive in Indonesia. Covid travel restrictions change often, please find the latest changes here. Update: as of June 2023, you don’t need a Covid vaccination certificate anymore.
Indonesia has rupiah (IDR) in the 1000s. Most people ignore the ‘000 and just use the direct number. So if a smoothie bowl is 80,000 IDR, you can say 80k IDR.
1,000 IDR = 5.3 INR
Only the touristy areas in Bali run on credit/debit cards. The rest of the country is primarily on cash. There are plenty of ATMs in the touristy areas (including the airports). Always carry sufficient cash, in case you find yourself out of the touristy areas.