Bali’s thriving Canggu neighbourhood is a paradise of beach clubs, temples, rice paddies, yoga and boho chic, as Linda Botting discovers.
Day One
7am
Start the day early with a sunrise yoga class at Desa Seni Village Resort. The bamboo open-air studio is set against lush, green tropical plants with cheeky wildlife wandering past. Not only can you practise lizard pose, but you may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one slowly ambling across the grass.
8.40am
After a delicious poolside breakfast, your personal driver will take you to Kuda P Stables, a 20-minute drive to Pererenan black-sand beach. The stables are Australian-owned with 50 years’ horse handling experience. A one-and-a-half- hour ride will take you through rural beachside countryside of lush green rice paddies where farmers busily tend to their crops.
10.45am
Time to jump back in the car and take a short drive to Echo Beach. It is known locally as Pantai Batu Mejan and is one of Canggu’s popular surfing beaches. You don’t need to be a surfer to enjoy the 180-degree views as you slowly meander along soft, yet grainy, grey sand.
12pm
Having worked up an appetite, there’s no shortage of restaurants to choose from in the vicinity, all set high upon the cliff above Echo Beach with amazing views of the reef breaks below. These restaurants are family and pet friendly and you can often see locals lunching with their dogs.
1.15pm
It’s time to learn about silversmithing from an Indonesian expert at the House of Alaia; the three-hour jewellery-making class explains the techniques and secrets of working with the precious metal. All that’s needed is imagination and creativity in order to make a custom-designed piece of jewellery, a totally unique souvenir to take home.
4pm
Back at the resort, try a traditional Balinese or hot stone massage as you relax after a busy day of activity. When you’re done, head to the cool of the pool for a leisurely soak before heading out again.
7pm
Finns Beach Club is located at the popular Berawa surf break. The 30-metre infinity pool here affords perfect views of the sunset from all angles and is even equipped with underwater speakers; it’s impossible to resist a quick swim while enjoying the resident DJ’s tunes vibrating through the water. Settle in at one of the poolside lounges with a margarita in hand and take in the scene.
8.30pm
The sun gone and pre-dinner drinks downed, head into the restaurant for a relaxed dinner. Take a seat in the casual yet stylish open-air bamboo dining area and sample delicious, fresh local dishes; the Finns Beach Club mantra is ‘good food done well’.
Day Two
7am
Head for a leisurely breakfast at Deus Cafe Canggu, with its unique motorcycle-inspired decor. Choose from a menu of Indonesian, Asian and Italian dishes or opt for something that hints at its Aussie origins.
All diets are catered for, from meat through to vegetarian and vegan. Sit back in one of the overstuffed sofas and sip Deus’s signature coffee, which some call the best in Bali.
8:30am
Work off breakfast with a 13-minute walk to Hotel Tugu Bali for a cooking class with East Javanese chef Iboe Soelastri, learning about local spices on a trip to a traditional market, and sampling juicy rambutan or mangosteen along the way.
Once you return to the open-air wooden kitchen – sans modern electrical products, where all cooking is done in traditional terracotta rice steamers and wood-fire earthen pits – you’ll first choose five recipes from a list of traditional Javanese and Balinese dishes, including chicken curry and fried tempe, before rolling up your sleeves and cooking up a storm.
12pm
It’s time for the fun part, sitting down with your fellow chefs to sample the mouth-watering dishes created during the class. You’ll leave with a copy of the recipes you chose to cook so that you can replicate them at home.
2 pm
After a light lunch back at the resort, head to an afternoon Yin restorative yoga class in the open-air studio at Desa Seni.
The gentle flowing movements won’t stretch the endurance of yoga novices, and the soft sea breeze and calming music will set you up perfectly for heading out for an afternoon of shopping.
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3pm
Ask your driver to cruise along Jalan Pantai Batu Bolong, Canggu’s burgeoning shopping strip where stores to rival Seminyak’s chic offerings are steadily growing in number; many refer to Canggu as the new Seminyak.
The Love Anchor bazaar sells traditional and quirky items, and you should definitely stop in at Beyond Borders and Bungalow Living for luxe yet affordable homewares that allow you to take a bit of the island-chic vibe home with you.
6pm
Canggu is the gateway to Tanah Lot and a trip to Bali is not complete without a visit to the evocative sea temple.
The Balinese believe the banded sea snake, guardian of the temple, lives in the nearby waters. Be sure to keep a look out as you cross the plain as the tide rolls in. A short walk along the pathway will take you to Pura Batu Bolong for the best sunset views, especially just after a shower of warm tropical rain.
8pm
Book a table at La Laguna, where the owners, Gonzalo and Sandra Assiego, were inspired by their love of Spanish heritage to design a bohemian-chic beach club with a global gypsy vibe.
Enter along a cobbled path lined with vintage wooden caravans before taking your seat in the alfresco dining area. Start with a cocktail, perhaps a cool cosmopolitan, and settle in for a delicious selection of Balinese and European dishes.
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After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?
In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.
Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?
Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?
How tourism is changing in Nepal
Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.
Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.
“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.
Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”
Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”
CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.
A new generation demanding more
Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”
We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”
Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…
Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.
Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.
A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.
Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.
Life unfiltered in the Terai region
Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.
Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.
Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.
Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.
On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.
A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.
The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.
In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.
Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.
The power of community homestays
Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.
“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”
The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.
An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.
Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.
CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.
“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.
Elephant watch. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.
Gathering greens. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”
Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”
Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.
