Tours in Bali

Bali is one island among the seventeen thousand of Indonesia, and the only one that stayed Hindu when the rest turned Muslim in the sixteenth century. That single fact explains most of what visitors come for: the temple on every compound, the offerings on every doorstep each morning, the processions that stop traffic. Around four million people live here on an island you can drive across in three hours — if the traffic lets you, which it usually does not.

The island divides into three moods. The south — Kuta, Seminyak, Canggu, Uluwatu — has the surf, the beach clubs and the crowds. Ubud, twenty-five kilometres inland, is the cultural centre: rice terraces, craft villages, yoga, and the museums that hold the shift Balinese painting took in the 1930s. North and east are quieter: the volcanoes Batur and Agung, the black-sand coast at Amed, and Lovina, where the dolphins come at sunrise.

Things to do in Bali sort into temples, volcano treks, water and workshops, and most visitors underestimate the driving between them. April to October is dry season and the reliable window; November to March brings afternoon rain that rarely ruins a day but does close the summits. Tours in Bali can usually be booked a day or two ahead outside July, August and the New Year weeks, when the sunrise treks and the boat transfers to Nusa Penida fill first.