Uluwatu & Bukit

The Bukit is the limestone plateau hanging off the bottom of Bali, south of the airport, and Uluwatu sits on its south-western tip. Almost every beach on it is at the foot of a cliff. Uluwatu Temple is about forty-five minutes from the airport, and up to an hour and a half if you arrive late in the afternoon. From Canggu, allow an hour and a quarter before eight in the morning and two and a half to three hours between three and six.

Uluwatu Temple charges IDR 60,000 for a foreign adult and IDR 40,000 for a child, sarong and sash included, and the outer temple is open from seven in the morning to seven at night. The kecak in the clifftop amphitheatre is a separate ticket: IDR 150,000 for an adult, IDR 75,000 for a child aged two to nine, with shows at six and at seven. The six o'clock show runs into sunset and fills first, so the gate opens around four and you want to be queuing by half past. The seven o'clock show is the same performance with fewer people in it. The monkeys at Uluwatu take sunglasses, phones and purses, and they are practised at it.

Most of the Bukit's beaches are free and reached on foot down a cliff. Bingin has no entrance fee and between 150 and 190 steps from the path to the sand. Padang Padang costs IDR 15,000 in cash and drops you through a cleft in the limestone. Balangan, Suluban, Nyang Nyang and Impossibles are free, with about IDR 5,000 to park. Melasti is IDR 15,000 to 20,000 and Pandawa IDR 15,000, and those two you can drive down to, which matters if anyone would rather not climb back up at one in the afternoon.

The Bukit's surf season is the dry half of the year. May to October brings the south-west groundswell and the trade winds that hold the cliff-front lefts open at Uluwatu, Padang Padang, Bingin and Impossibles. June to August is the peak; April, May, September and October give much the same waves with lighter wind and fewer people. These are reef breaks over shallow coral, not where you learn.

Ride-hailing apps will drop you on the Bukit, but local transport groups block pickups. Plan on a scooter at IDR 80,000 to 150,000 a day, or a driver at IDR 650,000 to 900,000 for a ten-hour day plus tickets and parking.

We would give the Bukit two or three days and we would not base a first trip here. Ubud is two hours away, and everything you drive to from the peninsula you drive back from in the dark. If you came for waves, or for a few days of doing very little above a cliff, it earns the time. Otherwise sleep somewhere more central and come down for the temple, one beach and the six o'clock kecak.