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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

The pool at Mandapa resort near Ubud, overlooking rice paddies, jungle, and river

There are places in the world that impress you the first time you visit them. Then there are places that keep drawing you back because they make you feel something very special. Bali is one of those places for us.

What we love most about Bali is its extraordinary natural beauty. The island is impossibly green. There are towering palms, rivers cutting through deep jungle, volcanic mountains that seem to appear out of nowhere, and rice terraces sculpted into hillsides that look more like works of art than farms.

The path through rice paddies to get from the pool to our room

Got a hair cut!

Our view of the river from lunch. This may well be the same river where we first tried white water rafting 30 years ago.

But the beauty isn’t just natural. The Balinese have an almost remarkable devotion to beauty itself. Every morning, tiny offerings of flowers appear outside homes, shops, temples, and restaurants. Shrines are draped with fresh cloth. Gates are carved with astonishing detail. Even ordinary places seem to have been designed with an eye toward grace.

We’re not remotely spiritual people, but it’s impossible not to notice the spirituality here. It isn’t tucked away inside churches or reserved for holidays. It seems woven into everyday life. The island has an atmosphere that suggests the sacred and the ordinary comfortably coexist. I once heard that the Balinese are the only people in the world who believe the afterlife is very much like the place they live now.

One thing that surprised us this trip was the weather. We’ve always visited Bali during our own winter, when it’s also Bali’s rainy season. It’s always very hot and humid, which is okay because we are escaping winter at home and we enjoy cooling off by a nice pool. But here we are in July, during the dry season, and the climate is perfection. Days have been in the 70s and low 80s with little humidity. Even more of a tropical paradise.

When you move from place to place things looks rather chaotic. It’s a relatively small island — about twice the size of Rhode Island — but home to well over four million people, making it one of the most densely populated islands in Indonesia. Drive almost anywhere and you’ll find yourself inching along narrow roads packed with scooters, cars, delivery trucks, and an endless procession of little shops, workshops, cafés, and roadside businesses. There are stretches where it feels like one long, endless town.

Then, almost without warning, you turn down a side road.

Suddenly the traffic disappears. The noise fades. You’re surrounded by towering bamboo, ancient banyan trees, emerald rice paddies, rushing rivers, and temples that seem to emerge naturally from the landscape. Every village seems to have several temples. Every valley seems more beautiful than the last. It’s astonishing how quickly Bali can transform from chaotic to serene.

Bali is also home to innumerable wonderful places to stay. From stylish boutiques to ultra high-end resorts, the choices are almost daunting. We decided to divide our stay into 6 stays of 5 or 6 nights each, giving us half a dozen experiences in hotels and parts of the island with very different personalities. After our initial stay in quiet Eastern Bali, we’ve now moved to our first stop in the Ubud area, the physical center and spiritual heart of the island.

Jim crosses the rice paddy

A heavenly lunch overlooking the river

One day we walked 10 minutes down the chaotic Main Street to a neighboring resort for lunch

And quickly stepped into yet another stunning and peaceful landscape

Walking past one of the ubiquitous temples after lunch

Can’t stop taking pictures of this landscape

Another day we walked to a lunch place overlooking this beautiful spot. We ordered a bottle of rosé but were quite surprised when the lovely waitress tried to serve it. She kept struggling to twist the top off the bottle, until Jim explained that it required a corkscrew.

The temple on the grounds of our resort

The pool in our room after a quick afternoon rain storm rushed in. The river rushes by just below the pool, and we frequently hear the excited shouts of the rafters going past.

The resort has a special beauty under the sudden rain storm

Crossing the rice paddy

The entrance to our room

We really love Bali