Ubud and East Bali
Seven days that leave Ubud after three and end on the coast nobody drives to.
Wellness Retreat · 7 days · May to September
Bali's problem is not the island, it is the south. This gives Ubud three days and then keeps going east — Sidemen, the Karangasem water palaces, Amed — where the traffic thins to nothing and the water clears. The daily order is deliberately inverted too: the Tampaksiring temples at dawn while they are still being used for worship, and the rice terraces at the end of the afternoon once the swings and the coach parties have emptied out.
Day by day
- Day 1
Ubud, quietly
Arrive, walk one water temple in late light, and take dance in the courtyard it was written for.
16:00Pura Taman Saraswati
A water temple reached through a café courtyard, and the last corner of central Ubud that still feels like the village the painters came for.
The lotus flowers close through the heat of the day and reopen late afternoon.
19:30Ubud Palace
Dance performed in the courtyard it was choreographed for, by the family that has been commissioning it for a century — not a hotel ballroom version.
Legong and barong performances run most nights at 19:30; tickets are sold at the gate the same afternoon.
- Day 2
The Ubud edges
A ravine full of macaques at opening, then an eleventh-century cave on the way back.
08:30Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary
Three temples in a banyan ravine with a resident troop of long-tailed macaques; go at opening, because the heat and the crowds arrive together.
Carry nothing loose. No sunglasses on your head, no water bottles in hand, no open bags — the macaques take all three.
11:00Goa Gajah
An eleventh-century meditation cave cut through a demon's mouth, with a Buddhist bathing pool below it that was only dug out of the mud in 1954.
- Day 3
Tampaksiring at dawn
The spring temple before the tour groups, a royal cliff tomb nobody visits, and terraces at the end of the day.
07:30Tirta Empul
The purification spring is a working ritual rather than a photo stop, and at half seven you queue at the spouts alongside Balinese families instead of behind tour groups.
Sarong and sash are required, plus a separate sarong to bathe in. Menstruating women may not enter the temple or the pools.
10:30Gunung Kawi
Ten seven-metre royal shrines cut straight into the cliff face in the eleventh century — the oldest monument on the island, and almost always empty.
Roughly 300 steps down into the gorge and the same back up, with no shade at the bottom.
16:00Tegallalang Rice Terrace
The subak irrigation that cut these terraces is what UNESCO actually listed, and after four the swings and the coaches clear out and the light runs down the valley.
Each landowner charges a small toll to cross their section of the terraces; carry low-denomination notes.
- Day 4
East to Sidemen
Leave Ubud behind for a valley with no coach access, then the mother temple as the afternoon cloud lifts.
10:00Sidemen
The valley Ubud was forty years ago — working rice terraces, songket weavers, roads too narrow for a coach — with Agung filling the head of it.
15:00Besakih Temple
Twenty-three temples stacked up the flank of Mount Agung, and going late usually means the summit cloud has lifted off it.
Ignore anyone in the car park insisting on a compulsory paid guide or a donation beyond the printed ticket. It is a long-running hustle here.
- Day 5
The water palaces
Two palaces built by the same raja, taken in the order that keeps you ahead of the day-trip traffic.
08:00Tirta Gangga
The last raja of Karangasem designed and built it himself in 1946, and at eight the stepping-stone pond is empty enough to actually cross.
Buy a bag of fish food at the gate if you want the carp to come up to the stepping stones.
10:30Taman Ujung
The same raja's earlier and much larger palace, wrecked by the 1963 eruption and then a 1979 earthquake, and far emptier than Tirta Gangga for it.
- Day 6
Amed
One thing, done early and properly: the best shore snorkelling on the island.
07:00Jemeluk Bay
Coral starts ten metres off the beach, so Bali's best snorkelling needs no boat, no guide and no crossing.
The black volcanic sand is painful underfoot by mid-morning — reef shoes, and be in the water early.
- Day 7
Bali Aga, and the last swim
A village that kept its pre-Majapahit rules, then a cove over the headland from the ferry port.
09:00Tenganan Pegringsingan
One of only three places on earth still weaving double ikat, in a Bali Aga village that kept its pre-Majapahit rules and its iron gamelan intact.
12:00Padangbai
Ten minutes' walk over the eastern headland from the busy ferry port is the Blue Lagoon, with reef fish in waist-deep water and a handful of warungs behind it.
Currents pick up sharply outside the bay mouth — stay inside the headlands.
Questions
- How long is the Ubud and East Bali itinerary?
- The Ubud and East Bali itinerary runs 7 days and covers 14 stops across Ubud, Tampaksiring, Sidemen, Manggis, Amed, Padangbai.
- When is the best time to do the Ubud and East Bali itinerary?
- May to September is the best window for the Ubud and East Bali itinerary.
- What happens on day one of the Ubud and East Bali itinerary?
- Day one is ubud, quietly: Arrive, walk one water temple in late light, and take dance in the courtyard it was written for.
Sources
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