Surprise! The beaches of Bali are gorgeous. Insert any and all superlatives of your preference here.
By day, they look like this.
And by twilight:
And the sand on some of them is ROUND! Even more comfortable to lay on!
Several have, of course, been pretty thoroughly discovered. Still pretty, just less secluded.
Some are in villages with wonderful snorkeling opportunities, like Amed with its Japanese shipwreck. (We do not have a wateproof casing for our camera, so you'll just have to take our word about the snorkeling.)
...But then there are the beaches in the truly crowded tourist areas where you have to walk the phalanx of tourist gack to get down to the sand.
Axl Rose, anyone? I know this is EXACTLY what I was hoping to buy on our trip to Bali. This very poster is currently hanging over my bed.
And, sadly, there is rampant development in some spots, so your beachy reverie might be broken by the not-so-distant sound of jackhammering.
Of course, 500 meters down from this new monstrosity, the seaweed harvest goes on.
And there are still places of pilgrimage and power.
The quietest beaches are the ones you have to go a bit out of your way to get to. We did some clambering and climbing.
And even on these beaches, there would often be a woman mixing up sauce for rujak.
That's the thing about Bali that we kept coming back to. Even with all the tourism, life goes on here. Bali is, at least so far, too big and too confident to be completely taken over by our mass tourism.
It abides. You know, like the Dude.
So go have a sundowner at a bar on the other side of a rickety bridge, and just lean back into Bali.
I wish we could have stayed for months.
Comments