Tanah Lot on its rock in the sea, the Tegalalang rice terraces above Ubud, Ulun Danu reflected in Lake Bratan, and sunset at Uluwatu.
Photo: Katarzyna Zygnerska / Unsplash
Day 1
The group meets at Da Nang International Airport for the flight to Bali, connecting as the airline schedule requires. A local guide meets you at Ngurah Rai Airport and transfers you to the hotel in Kuta or Nusa Dua. Depending on landing time, the evening is free to walk the beachfront near the hotel.
Day 2
We head up to Ubud, the highland town considered the cultural centre of the island, stopping at the woodcarving village of Mas and the silver village of Celuk to watch the work being done. Next are the Tegalalang rice terraces, still irrigated by the subak system that farming cooperatives have run since the ninth century and now recognised by UNESCO. Late in the afternoon we reach Tanah Lot, a Hindu temple built on a rock that is cut off from the shore entirely at high tide, and stay for the sun going down behind it.
Day 3
We drive north to the cool Bedugul highlands, around 1,200 metres up. The main stop is Ulun Danu Beratan, dedicated to the water goddess Dewi Danu, whose tiered meru towers stand at the very edge of Lake Bratan and appear to float on it. On the way we stop for photographs at the Handara Gate and walk down to the twin Banyumala waterfall in the forest; the path down is steep stone, so bring shoes with grip. We return to the coast in the late afternoon.
Day 4
The morning is spent at Pandawa Beach on the Bukit peninsula, reached through a road cut clean through a vertical limestone cliff down to a sheltered strip of white sand. In the afternoon we go up to Uluwatu, a temple on a cliff about 70 metres above the Indian Ocean; hold on to your sunglasses and hat, as the resident macaques are practised thieves. As the sun drops, the group watches the Kecak fire dance in the open-air amphitheatre beside the temple, performed by around seventy men chanting in place of any instruments.
Day 5
After checking out there is time to buy luwak coffee, coconut oil and handicrafts. Your guide transfers you to Ngurah Rai Airport for the flight back to Da Nang, where the programme ends.
Bali is not large — you can drive it north to south in about three hours — but the roads are narrow and often jammed, so the question is never how many places you can reach but in what order. This itinerary splits the island into three directions and takes one per day: Ubud in the middle, Bedugul to the north, Uluwatu to the south.
The two sunsets in the programme are deliberate. Tanah Lot and Uluwatu are both sea temples and both are at their best in the last forty minutes of the day; arrive at midday and you get hard light and crowds instead. The trade-off is two late returns to the hotel.
Bali is the one Hindu island in Indonesia and its temples are working places of worship, not museums. You will need to wear a sarong to enter — we provide them — and should stay out of the inner courtyard when a ceremony is underway. Group size, hotel category and departure dates are agreed before the contract is signed.
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