Bali first. Then keep going east.
Batur before dawn, the Tegallalang terraces by mid-morning, Borobudur at first light and the boats out of Labuan Bajo. What each one is really like, what it costs, and where to book it.
Seven that hold up.
The bookings that survive every version of an Indonesia itinerary. A full Ubud day with a driver who waits, the private boat that finds mantas off Penida, the Legong dancers at the palace, and the volcano you climb in the dark to watch the sun arrive.
All-Inclusive Ubud Private Tour
A private Ubud day tour with rice terraces, Monkey Forest, Tirta Empul, Tegenungan Waterfall, plus an included swing and lunch.
From $100 per person
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Terraces in the morning, temples after lunch.
The standard Ubud day is a driver, a car and a list: Tegallalang while the light is still low and the terraces are empty, the Monkey Forest, a swing over the Ayung gorge, a water temple on the way home. Almost every operator sells the same stops, so the difference is the pace, the group size and whether lunch is included or a surprise.
Which volcano do you get up for?
Every Indonesia itinerary has one pre-dawn alarm in it, and the three candidates are nothing like each other. One is on Bali and easy. Two are on Java, harder to reach, and worth the ferry. Pick the morning that suits your legs and your route.
Bali · 2 a.m. pickup
Batur, the one you can actually do
from $33 · 1,927 reviews
Two hours up a black scree path in the dark with a torch, and you are on the rim by five. Eggs cooked in a steam vent, gibbon-loud jungle below, Agung and Rinjani coming out of the haze across the lake. No technical ground, no altitude to speak of, and most trips fold in the hot springs at Toya Devasya afterwards. This is the sunrise almost everyone means.
Compare the Batur climbs →
East Java · jeep
Bromo, the view rather than the walk
from $153 · 1,759 reviews
You do not climb Bromo so much as get driven to the right place to look at it. A jeep leaves Malang or Probolinggo around midnight for the Penanjakan viewpoint, and at sunrise the whole Tengger caldera fills with cloud and three cones stand out of it. Then down across the sand sea to the crater stairs. Bring a coat: it drops near freezing up there.
See the Bromo mornings →
East Java · 1 a.m. start
Ijen, the blue fire
from $527 · 202 reviews
The hardest of the three and the strangest. You walk up in the dark, put on a gas mask, and drop into the crater to watch burning sulphur run electric blue against the rock. By daybreak the flames have gone and you are looking at a turquoise acid lake instead, with miners carrying eighty-kilo baskets past you on the path. Usually paired with Bromo over two nights.
See the Ijen hikes →
Uluwatu keeps the last hour.
The cliff amphitheatre fills about an hour before sunset, seventy men sit down in a ring and start the chak chanting that carries the whole Ramayana without a single instrument. It finishes in firelight, in the dark, with the surf a hundred metres below. Book the seats early and eat afterwards on the sand at Jimbaran, where the tables go out at dusk.
Manta Point runs all year.
Reef mantas feed off the south-west corner of Nusa Penida every month of the year, and the boats leave Sanur at seven to reach them. Further out there is the wall at Menjangan, the wreck at Tulamben you can walk to from the beach, and the cold upwellings that bring mola mola past Lembongan between July and October.
Half a day, soaked through.
The Ayung runs class two and three past gorge walls somebody has carved with reliefs, so it suits families more than it sounds. The Telaga Waja is steeper and colder. Inland from Ubud the quad bikes go through a tunnel cut under a hill and out at a waterfall, which is the single most photographed muddy hour on Bali.
The temples keep their own hours.
Borobudur opens for sunrise on a separate ticket and a capped number of visitors, and you climb it barefoot in supplied sandals. On Bali the rules are simpler and firmer: a sarong and sash at every gate, no walking in front of somebody praying, and no entry to the inner courtyards during ceremonies or if you are menstruating. Guides carry spare sarongs. Besakih requires a licensed one.
Most of this is Bali. So here is Bali, split up.
One island of the seventeen thousand carries the overwhelming majority of what is bookable in Indonesia, and the counts below say so plainly. Ubud for the terraces and the river. The Bukit for cliffs and surf. East Bali for Lempuyang and the old kingdoms. Penida for the day boat. Everything past that has its own section further down.
Pick the sort of morning you want.
Twelve ways to spend a morning here, each one already priced and reviewed. Some of them you will do twice.
Java, Flores, Lombok, Sumatra.
A cheap hour in the air changes the country completely. Yogyakarta for the two great temples and a batik workshop. Labuan Bajo for the liveaboards and the dragons. Bukit Lawang for orangutans in the wild rather than a sanctuary. Ijen and Bromo sit between Bali and Surabaya and are usually done as one long two-night loop.
The first three days on Bali.
Nearly every trip through this country opens at Denpasar, and the order of the first three days matters more than people expect. Inland while the jet lag is still useful, the volcano on the clearest forecast, the coast last.
Day 1
Go straight inland
Skip the beach and drive up to Ubud. Terraces, the Monkey Forest, a swing over the gorge, and a cooking class in the late afternoon so you are asleep by nine and ready for the alarm.
Plan day one →
Day 2
Up Batur, then the water
Pickup at two, on the rim for sunrise, hot springs on the lake by ten. Sleep it off, then a waterfall in the afternoon while the light is soft. Move this day to whichever morning has the clearest forecast.
Plan day two →
Day 3
South to the cliffs
Down to the Bukit peninsula. A surf lesson at Kuta if the swell is small, Padang Padang in the afternoon, then kecak at Uluwatu as the sun drops and grilled fish on the sand at Jimbaran.
Plan day three →
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