Valentine's Day in Indonesia

Valentine's Day in Indonesia is a thin tradition and an uneven one. The fourteenth of February is an ordinary working day rather than a public holiday, and in the more conservative parts of the country it is discouraged outright: Aceh forbids it under local religious by-laws, and education offices in a number of other districts send round a circular each February telling schools to leave it alone. In Jakarta and Bali it survives as commerce, in hotel dinner sets and chocolate towers in the malls. In Bali it also lands in the middle of the rains, which shapes the day far more than the calendar does.

So almost everything here is private and built around two people. The unit is a car, a driver who guides, and a route you help draw: the cliffs down the west side of Nusa Penida and the crossing to reach them, the waterfalls in the ravines north of Ubud, or the long western loop taking in Lake Bratan, the Batur rim and the sea temple at Tanah Lot at sunset. The other half of the offer is a photographer who comes along, and that is a genuine local speciality rather than an upsell. The best known spot of all, the gate at Lempuyang, produces its mirrored reflection from a piece of glass held under the lens, at the end of a queue that runs for hours on numbered tickets.

Practical. February is the wettest stretch of the Balinese year, and the pattern is usually a clear morning with rain arriving after lunch, so a day that starts at six and does the outdoor half early is the one that works. Fast boats to the Nusa islands are cancelled in a big swell, and February produces those, so keep that crossing off a fixed date if the trip allows. A private car is priced by the vehicle and not by the head, which is the whole argument for a couple: two of you pay what four would. Waterfall paths at this time of year are steps cut into wet clay, so the good shoes stay in the room.