Located on Jalan Petitenget right next to Biku, The Fat Turtle is a casual cafe serving up toast and pancakes and great coffee. A great place for a slow and leisurely breakfast!
The cafe is small with old fashioned tiles, sewing machine tables and hipster lights. We found the tables to be slightly small for groups of 4, but we managed anyway. If you’re a couple wanting to come here, there’s plenty of room.
We ordered a range of dishes and all were quite good. The red velvet pancakes came topped with cream and were tasty and moist.
The banana bread French toast was also moist, but some might think it’s too small. We like the size.
The corn fritters were awesome and the addition of the avocado purée was a good choice in order to keep the dish from being too dry.
The coffee was too notch and pretty much in line with what we expect in Bali these days.
We’re fans of this place and would be happy to come back here again for breakfast or lunch. A good solid cafe for those in need of sustenance in Seminyak and one of the better places around.
The Fat Turtle
Jalan Petitenget 886A, Seminyak
thefatturtlebali@gmail.com
Instagram: @thefatturtlebali
Opening Hours: 08:00 – 18:00
Red Velvet Pancakes: Rp55.000++
Banana Bread French Toast: Rp45.000++
Corn Fritters: Rp55.000++
Cappuccino: Rp25.000++
And the food we’ve tried is good! The skillet eggs are not huge, but enough for a breakfast and very tasty.
The eggs benedict with smashed avo was sensational. The mango pancakes tasted great, but were just too much for one person to eat.
For people with kids, this is the perfect cafe. There’s a fair sized play area on the back lawn which doesn’t disturb other guests, but caters perfectly for families with kids.
We really like this cafe and think it’s worth visiting if you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of Seminyak for a while.
Great temperature, great flavour and great texture.
The location is what we really love about this place. It’s tiny and feels awesome when you’re the only one there.
When it fills up it can feel a little crowded, but not so bad. Surprisingly, it’s not always full, so you’ve always got a good chance of getting a seat.
The staff are cool and helpful and we’ll definitely be back regularly for a coffee fix. Highly recommended and one of our favourites in Bali!
I hired a car for 4 days and it was the best decision, but not everything went as planned and I would have done a couple of things differently if I knew what was going to happen.
A lot of forums I read stated that you absolutely have to get a 4wd vehicle as 2wd sedans just can’t do these roads. I got a small 2wd car and it was perfect for visiting Laguna Tebinquiche, Laguna Chaxa and Lagunas Miscanti & Miñiques. I also tried to visit Salar de Tara, but was driven back by an immense sand storm which threatened to sandblast the paint on the car to bare metal. At an altitude of about 4800m, I decided to turn the car around as the wind was moving faster than the car and the car was travelling at 100km/h.
The other place I wanted to visit was the geyser, but I just didn’t think I should put the small car through the pain of travelling along that treacherous road. Again, if you must visit the geyser independently, hire a 4wd. If you don’t have enough money for a 4wd, that’s ok. Just visit the lagunas I visited and you will love it.
After visiting about 5 shops, I finally found someone who said he would attempt to repair the wheel. 20,000 pesos later and I was on my way. That day was wasted and Budget refused to help fix the wheel. They just insisted it was my responsibility which sucks really… I would have appreciated them facilitating the repair and me paying for it, but that didn’t happen.
Whatever the case, I kind of wished I had insurance at that time because the potential cost for me was massive. Also, the sand storm incident was scary and insurance would have eased my mind a little. I’m not a big advocate for car insurance generally, but I think the conditions in the Atacama can be so extreme that it’s wise to get insurance even though it’s expensive.
The one night we ate pizza in town we drove. No problem! In fact, I didn’t really like the vibe in the centre of town and I’m glad we stayed a little bit out of the centre. Too many hippies, overly confident guide types and touristy shops and restaurants where prices are exorbitant.
I paid $65 per night at Hostal Desert which included a pretty good breakfast –> Check the current price on 
Climbing it really requires a guide and you can either do it as an overnight hike or a one day hike. The overnight hike starts during the middle of the day and ends in the middle of the next with no night hiking required.
The tea plantations of Pagar Alam line the slopes of Gunung Dempo. BESH hotel actually sits right in the middle of the plantations as do a number of other hotels. BESH at this stage is the only one bookable online.
Cughup Tujuh Kenangan is a large waterfall which is a short but steep hike from the parking area. It’s a good place for a swim and you’ll be the only visitor if you come on a weekday. There is no official entry fee, but because the path to the waterfall goes through private property, you will need to give some cigarette money to the local people. Rp10.000 per person should be enough.
Cughup Mangkok is a pummelling waterfall which barrels out of the forest into a large pool. It’s an ideal place for a swim and you can even test your swimming skills under the actual waterfall. I didn’t get a chance to go for a swim here, but the location is set up for swimming… so yeah, it’s perfect for that really.
When I was there there was a group of kids jumping off rocks into the pool and generally having a great old time. A top place for a swim! A small entry fee is payable at the front. Rp5.000 from memory.
We bought a lot of food for this trek and it ended up being way way too much. For some unknown reason, we just didn’t eat as much as we normally would and we brought too much emergency food. This weighed us down a lot!
Within 10 minutes it started raining lightly. Within half an hour it was really windy. Actually windier than I’ve ever experienced before so we could guess it was gusting well over 100km/h. This wind combined with the rain combined with a temperature of about 2°C was awful. Our pants were immediately soaked and our legs like blocks of ice. But we had to keep walking in that incredible headwind even as it almost blew us over numerous times.
We decided to walk up to Mirador Glacier Grey, a 4 hour round trip. The wind was strong again, but because there was no rain and we weren’t carrying our big packs, it was really easy to do and a perfect tonic for the previous day’s misery.
From there we headed back to Italiano, ate some lunch and progressed onto Cuernos. I’d never set up a tent on a wooden platform before, so that was a learning experience. I just did what everyone else before me had done and placed big rocks inside the tent in the corners to keep it from flying away. It wasn’t that windy there anyway.
At this point we stopped and talked about our plan. It seemed that we wouldn’t have enough time that day to reach the towers because we were running out of light. We also knew we wouldn’t be able to wake up the next morning, hike to the towers and then all the way back down to Amarga to catch the bus. In the end, we decided to descend out of the snow and back to Chileno.
Susan hunted down the chef again and asked if we could come inside. He instead opened up his kitchen for us, turned on the gas stove and gave us access to water. Within a couple of hours it was reasonably warm in there to the point we could take our jackets off. Big thanks to the chef at Chileno.
We commenced our trek down from Chileno to Laguna Amarga which was quite muddy by this time.
The two farms which are most advertised are El Ocaso and Don Elias. El Ocaso is the main one people go to as it’s the one most set up for the tourist trade and even has a guesthouse on site. Always looking for something a little different, we chose Don Elias which is a family run organic coffee farm. Simply walk 5km to the west of town down Carrera 5 and you will reach the farm. It’s actually just past El Ocaso and you will see signs all along the way so you’ll know you’re on the right road. The views along this road are excellent and it is such a pleasant walk!
When you’re done at the coffee farm, you can either walk back the way you came or walk up the driveway of El Ocaso and just before you enter their main compound, follow their fenceline on the right. Don’t turn down the road on the right. Just follow their fenceline down to the river and across the bridge. After crossing the bridge, turn right and follow that road along the river all the way to the main road. From here you can flag down a bus back into Salento. All in all a great day out. Some people also continue from the main road until a waterfall in the hills (Cascada Santa Rita), but that was way too much for us.
After about 1km, there is a small farm gate with a guy sitting under a sun shade. Enter here. From here you will pay the guy, start climbing up out of the valley and get great views of the spectacular trees. We initially missed this turn off and ended up 1km down the road and next to a river — wrong turn!
After a rest, start your descent. At this time you will meet other trekkers coming the other way. Keeping trekking until you reach a fork in the path and turn left (there is a sign). This path through the forest leads to the hummingbird sanctuary called Acaime. After a 20 minute walk you’ll reach the sanctuary, pay your 5,000 pesos entry fee and receive a cup of hot chocolate. The hummingbirds are awesome to watch and we actually spent about an hour there photographing them and eating our lunch.
After the hummingbirds, take the same path back but instead of heading back up hill at the fork, continue along the river, crossing numerous bridges. This part of the walk dragged on and on for us and took about 2 hours.
Apart from that, there’s not a whole lot else to do in town except wander around and enjoy the small town vibe. We loved it and I hope you do too!