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The perch over the beach where we would spend every morning. Yes, those are Mark’s legs peeking out.

After 16 nights at three resorts in the Ubud region it was time to move south, down to the Bukit peninsula on the southern end of Bali. This is very different from the jungles and forests of central Bali; it has, instead, a dry and stony landscape with massive cliffs on the western shore. So a big change from what we’ve been experiencing.

First, though, we had to get there. Now, that shouldn’t be too hard: it was only about 42 miles from our resort in Ubud to the Bulgari resort we were going to. How bad can that be? Don’t ask. You just crawl getting through Ubud and in fact it took us some two-and-a-half hours to make the trip. Yikes!

Now, to be fair, we did choose to make one stop en route. Pretty much every resort we’ve stayed at on this trip has their dishes made – typically custom made – at a place called Kevala here on the island. We’ve loved the ceramics and were going right past their main store in Denpasar so we made a quick stop (and picked up a few pieces for home; perfect souvenirs…). But we were in the store for no more than 10 or at most 15 minutes so, yeah, the traffic.

A couple frangipani trees, the infinity pool, and the Indian Ocean

Once we got to the resort though it was just as beautiful as we’d hoped. The property is apparently 20 years old, meaning that the gardens and grounds are fully mature, but it feels very modern, probably the most beautiful place we’ve stayed so far.

The resort itself is way up on a cliff and we didn’t think it had any beach access at all. When we got there, though, we discovered there was a funicular-type thing headed down. So every day after breakfast we’d head down and – because we’re early birds – get the best of the 10 chairs there. Even tbough it was on the beach you couldn’t actually go in the water – it was all rocky and dangerous. But just the roar of the surf and the isolation and natural beauty kept bringing us back again and again. Even our last day, when we were leaving at noon for our next destination, we had to spend a couple hours down there before coming up to pack.

The almost shockingly steep funicular

But once you got down there they’ve carved this little oasis into nature. Note that while there is a sandy beach you can’t swim there – the bottom is all sharp and dangerous rocks. It was still glorious anyway.

Oh, and did I mention coming back up? Notwithstanding the (shockingly steep) funicular that ran for some 500 feet, there were a total of 301 steps – some of them decidedly big and steep steps – from the beach up to the roadway leading to the lunch restaurant. For us, at least, it was worth it though it was obvious based on seating capacity that most people don’t ever go down there. And meanwhile, we could see a fair amount of construction down there, a bit away from our perch. Turns out there was a restaurant there that needed a refresh, so they were doing pretty much a gut renovation while we were there. In other words, there used to be a restaurant and there will be a restaurant in the area, but not during our visit. Sad.

As for food, we enjoyed lunch at the resort every day since nothing else was in the area. At night though, we’d usually use the Uber-equivalent here and go maybe 20 minutes to little tourist zones that had some good places. One night Lebanese that was pretty authentic, another night French, and yet another night supposedly Italian but there was stuff on the menu I’ve never seen in an Italian restaurant. All good though.

Lunch with a few of the ocean

All good and way cheaper than at the resort. The place was really gorgeous and the service was great. The prices were steep even by New York standards though, and that’s saying something. And honestly a martini there was no more than half the size of what we would typically get at our favorite restaurants at home so that was not ideal.

Now it’s on to our last stop. We’re on our way to a legitimate beach stop in Nusa Dua. Amusingly, we decided to check our blog to see what we’d written the last time we were there, back in 2017. The opening line in that blog was “Nusa Dua – an enclave of five-star resorts in southern Bali – might be the most beautiful place we’ve been that I just can’t imagine going back to.” Maybe we should have done some research before making that our last stop!

This sign that we passed a couple times on the way to dinner pretty much sums up our feeling about Bali

Mark wanted his picture taken on the beach so he went down to pose

Fortunately I was still taking pictures two seconds later when this is what he looked like

Flowers, pool chairs, the pool, the ocean

Bulgari is a very high end jewelry maker (among other things) and they like to advertise themselves

The view from our patio over the pool

Our cabin under a full moon

One more picture of the main pool

And finally, our last shot on our last morning. Mark is still down there squeezing every last minute he can out of that beach chair.

The view from lunch to the pool at Capella Ubud. Just to the left of the pool are steps to an opening in the jungle and the hanging bridge leading to our tent.

We’ve just completed our third and final stop in the Ubud area. We first came to Ubud 30 years ago when it was somewhat off the beaten track. We stayed in the center of town, where you could walk to the monkey forest, stroll through markets, visit temples, and be enchanted by just about everything.

Every time we’ve come back, the town of Ubud itself is more sprawling and traffic-choked than the time before. So we tend to spend time in the surrounding areas where countless magnificent resorts have popped up, surrounded by rice paddies, jungle, and cloud forest.

So here we are at Capella Ubud, where you stay in tents in the jungle and eat delicious food and experience the warm hospitality that the Balinese are so good at. They are not just any old tents; they are gorgeously crafted works of art with heated private pools, indoor and outdoor showers, every comfort imaginable. No hardship here.

We’d cross this hanging bridge to get to our tent

Our not too shabby tent, with a heated private pool

Contemplating the world from our little pool, unaware that Jim is taking a picture

Looking up from our pool at the canopy of trees overhead

One day we decided to take a taxi into the town of Ubud for lunch, in case we were missing out on its old charms. The closer you get to town, the slower and more tedious the traffic. Then we found ourselves walking in tourist-crowded, traffic-clogged streets checking out touristy, crappy restaurants. Not something we ever need to do again.

Our walk through town to look for lunch made us never want to step foot in the place again…

…unlike our first visit to Bali in 1996, when we were joined by John & Alma, my brother and sister-in-law, who lived in Australia at that time. We stayed in Ubud town then and were charmed by everything.

The next day our research led us to a lunch restaurant a 20-minute walk from our hotel. The walk took us across rice paddies, through real villages, and down temple-lined streets, to an unassuming place with good food and views of rice fields and people working and kids playing. That’s the Ubud area we love. You just need to keep a distance from the town itself.

Walkng through rice fields toward a lunch spot…

…and then through the village…

…and rewarded by lunch overlooking rice fields…

…where local farmers were working

The architecture and design in Balinese villages is so ornate that it’s hard to tell where the temples end and the houses begin

Heading back home after lunch

It’s worth noting the peculiarities of the weather here. This is generally the dry season in Bali, with little rain, low humidity, and very pleasant temperatures. But up here in the highlands of central Bali, little micro-climates seem to vary quite a bit. We’ve had clouds and rain move in for a while, then dissipate when they feel like it. It’s been pretty unpredictable these last couple weeks. But I rather like this moody weather.

One evening we took a Grab (the ride-sharing equivalent to Uber, ubuiquitous in much of Southeast Asia) to a nice restaurant 10 minutes away. Out of nowhere, a wind picked up and a torrential rainfall began. We couldn’t believe how hard it rained and for how long. It reminded us of a memorable rain in Kampot, Cambodia 13 years ago, the kind we’ve only ever experienced in this part of the world. It was still pouring something terrible when we called for a Grab to get back to our hotel. After just a few minutes our driver said, “No more raining,” and I was surprised to see that, indeed, the rain had let up entirely. In fact, the road was bone dry. There hadn’t been a drop of rain just a few minutes from one of the hardest rains I’d ever witnessed.

After 16 days in this area, we are now ready to head back to coastal Bali for our final 10 days. We’ll head south to Uluwatu for our a clifftop stay and then finally to Nusa Dua for a proper beach break.

A wonderful dinner at Upper Deck, a 10-minute drive from our hotel. At this point we had no idea about the unbelievable rain storm that was about to move in.

The pathways through the jungle at our hotel

Dinner at our hotel one night featured a Japanese egg custard dish with some kind of dramatic smoking jasmine tea. A little Swedish kid nearby, who’d been bored by the dinner up to that point, shouted, “Can I get more of that?!”

We loved the “gym tent” decorated with Balinese wood carvings and fabric

A small temple on the hotel grounds

Enjoying the beauty of Bali

Our third stop for five nights was a Banyan Tree resort in the little village of Buahan, north of the city of Ubud by maybe 30 minutes. This was very much a rain forest kind of experience, way up in the hills of Bali. Very isolated and definitely putting the “rain” in rain forest.

There wasn’t a lot to do in Buahan so we didn’t do a lot. Not even a gym here, the only one of the six resorts we’ll be visiting without a gym. That’s not to say we couldn’t get exercise. Late one morning we walked down to a waterfall. It was a long way down on steep and rough-cut stairs but surprisingly even longer coming back up – it really wiped me out. And I did a few long walks along the road into the countryside that, notwithstanding a few rogue dogs, were pretty pleasant.

Mark and Jim down at the water falls. It was beautiful but the hike back up was intense.

The highlight here was the food. The place is sufficiently remote that the room rate included both breakfast and dinner; there were no realistic options for dinner besides the resort. And while sometimes we can get bored with the same resort menu this one was pretty spectacular: every night a different menu that was almost Michelin-star worthy. To top it off, we learned that the menu is on a four-day cycle but we were staying five nights. So the chef made us a special meal on the fifth night, just so we wouldn’t have to repeat anything. That was really over-the-top service!

Dinner at the resort. The portions were small but there were multiple courses all amazing. I assure you we never went hungry.

A lot of the produce served here was grown on site. Here Tanti is giving me a tour of some of the garden. She would keep pulling one leaf after another, explaining how they used it both in cooking and for medicine. I was enchanted!

The other food highlight was a restaurant called Begawan Biji, maybe 20 or 25 minutes south of the resort. It’s actually much closer to Mandapa, our last stop, and we’d gone there for lunch once and LOVED it. The restaurant is surrounded by its own gardens and most of what they serve is very local and very fresh. So off we went for a return lunch and it was just as good the second time. Definitely a keeper!

Lunch at Begawan Biji. The food, the view, the company, the weather – it was perfection.

One of the things we started to notice years ago was that the higher up the “food chain” you go in terms of resort quality, the less likely you are to meet and get to know interesting people. We’re seeing that in spades on this trip: three stops, 17 nights in and we have literally not had a single conversation with anyone except staff. It’s all just very private and discreet with enormous amounts of private space. Which is great in many ways, but we enjoy meeting other travelers, too.

Thus our stop in Buahan was decidedly low key. A lot of reading, a bit of hiking and walking, a couple lunch excursions, some of the best resort meals ever and a lot of rain. On and off, on and off, day after day. Not really complaining – I guess you can’t expect a rain forest without rain, right?

Early morning view over the valley and our private pool

The rooms in Buahan were all individual cabins, all built without exterior walls so you just blended in with nature. When it rained you could get under the roof and at night there were mosquito nets but during the day it was seamless indoor-outdoor living.

The public pool. Since all of the cabins had private pools, this didn’t get a lot of use. After breakfast sometimes we’d go sit there to read, but sooner rather than later – typically sooner – it would start raining and we’d head to shelter. And you can see in the pool here, it was raining.

A view from our room

The birds liked our (heated) pool too

Another lunch excursion, this one to Jihwa at the Akohara resort. Good food and nice setting, but to be honest no Begawan Biji…

Jim at Jihwa

Another view from our lunch perch at Begawan Biji

A banana plantation on one of my walks out of the resort

Rice fields on my walk

Three times while I was walking outside the resort I’d see these groups of school kids out marching … somewhere

In this picture I was headed down to the waterfall but turned around for the picture. By the time I was coming back up I was way sweatier than this!

This was the walk down to our room

And Mark enjoying the pool