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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