We would go back to Bali

Fourteen days later, with the suitcase still not fully unpacked, the question we kept asking ourselves wasn't whether Bali had been worth it. We'd known that since Ubud. It was how long it would take us to go back, and what we'd leave out next time.

It's a destination that falls short in two weeks, however well you use them, and we used ours pretty well. We came back talking about Munduk, Sidemen, Nusa Lembongan, everything we left out of this route and already knew, before landing back home, was still waiting for another time.

Few destinations let you go, in the same week, from a temple floating on a lake to swimming with manta rays, and from there to pedaling aimlessly around a car-free island.

What stayed with us most, more than any single cliff or temple however impressive, was exactly that contrast — jungle and spirituality in Ubud, chaos and surf in Canggu, adventure on the islands, and the calm of the Uluwatu cliffs as the perfect closing act. Few trips manage to combine so many different faces of the same place without any of them feeling less authentic than the rest.

If you ask me whether Bali is a "once in a lifetime" destination or one you come back to, my answer after this trip is clear, without hesitation: it's the second kind.