Bali explored

Bali was thrust into the spotlight in 2006 with the publication of the self-help memoir Eat, Pray, Love, an auto-biographical tale of marital breakdown and a subsequent search for fulfilment. The author, Elizabeth Gilbert, goes eating in Italy, visits an ashram in India and finally looks for balance (but finds love) in Bali. In the six years since it was published, the book has sold more than seven million copies (it stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for 187 weeks). But Bali, a poverty-stricken Indonesian island that has survived earthquakes, volcanoes, bombings and colonisers, is now trying to survive an altogether different invasion: tourists, the number of whom rose by almost a third between 2008 and 2010.

I began in Ubud, Bali’s inland hippie hangout and ‘cultural centre’, whose streets are made somewhat gimmicky by the thousands of Eat, Pray, Love pilgrims (women in their forties and fifties wearing Thai fisherman’s trousers and Birkenstocks) eager to ‘find themselves’ on coach tours and guided excursions. If you want to find a healer, practise yoga, watch a ‘trad-itional’ dance, eat international food or buy a dubious piece of New Age art, this is where you come.

Thankfully, there is an alternative. Alila is a small, independently owned hotel company eager to get visitors off the mass-tourist trail. The word alila means ‘surprise’ in Sanskrit and the company’s philosophy is to show guests local culture while cosseting them in spectacularly luxurious surroundings. Each hotel has its own menu of ‘journeys’ through which local guides will show you authentic Balinese culture.

Alila Villas in Uluwatu, on the island’s southern tip, is perched high above the Indian Ocean on a limestone plateau. The hotel’s architects, the Singaporean company WOHA, have won shelf-loads of awards for the three-year-old property and it’s easy to see why. The 84 villas are built from local rattan and recycled wood and clad in flat lava rocks, which both absorb heat and camouflage the villas in the surrounding countryside. Each has a private courtyard fringed with frangipani trees, a sexy outdoor shower and a private pool.

Equally impressive was the journey I took, ‘To adventure’ – a day-long hike through local neighbourhoods and along deserted beaches. It began on the hilltop behind the hotel. With my guide Argus, I walked through steep countryside, past farms and tiny hamlets, stopping at local warungs (cafés) for tea. Two hours in, we reached a clifftop from where we surveyed the spectacular, deserted Nyang Nyang beach 100 metres below. After a treacherous scramble down, we walked along the sand past a shipwreck, our only companions the occasional seabird. Settling down in the shade of a rocky outcrop, Argus served up a portion of nasi goreng – a traditional spicy rice dish – wrapped up in a coconut leaf. After lunch, we cooled off in the surf. We hadn’t seen another soul the entire morning.

We continued our journey by Jeep to Uluwatu Temple (Pura Luhur Uluwatu), the most famous religious site in this part of the island. Perched on a steep cliff 100 metres above the waves, this white-coral monument is dedicated to the spirits of the sea. Flanked by steep headlands, it is home to thousands of wild monkeys who, although considered sacred, are eager to steal your sunglasses or camera.

All too soon, a private transfer whisked me away from Uluwatu to its sister property Alila Villas Soori on the island’s wild, western side. This coast is almost completely undeveloped and Soori is the only luxury hotel for miles. Vast expanses of rice terraces neighbour the property, a pertinent reminder that before there were tourists, this was Bali’s lifeblood.

Soori has the same level of luxury as Uluwatu but feels very different. It is remote: a 90-minute journey along a potholed road, crossing a rickety bridge and a final stretch of narrow track is the only way to reach it. There wasn’t another car for the last 20 minutes – quite some feat in traffic-heavy Bali. It is a beach-lover’s paradise, so long as you don’t mind your sand black and powder-fine, like ashy charcoal studded with silver glitter. An evening walk for a spot of stargazing (the lack of artificial light makes this one of the best spots on the island for looking at the night sky) is discombobulating when the ground beneath your feet mirrors the sky overhead.

I spent a day exploring the miles of empty beach and discovering some rather smelly bat caves, before visiting the famous 15th-century Tanah Lot Temple, perched on a rock offshore. At sunset, this vista is the stuff of postcards and is well worth the 30-minute taxi transfer. Then it was time for another journey, this time a bike ride to explore the Kerambitan and Tabanan area, where you have the chance to be part of village life. After a 90-minute dawn yoga class and a cup of Bali’s famous Kopi Luwak coffee (one of the world’s most expensive brews, produced using coffee beans excreted by civets), I joined my guide and clambered on to one of the hotel’s rickety mountain bikes.

The reason for the all-terrain bike quickly became clear, as the journey took us across rice fields, past farmers hard at work. We visited the house of a local blacksmith who works in front of an open furnace, despite the stifling 100-degree heat. With my guide doubling as translator, I sat in the blacksmith’s house drinking fresh coconut milk as local cultures and traditions were explained to me. We then cycled to a ceramics producer where I was encouraged to make my own pottery. The ladies working at the wheels made it look easy, but an entertaining shambles is the best way to describe my results.