WMA

Pick-Up from Ngurah Rai Airport, Check In to Hotel, Relax and Recuperate After your flight, airport transfers will be waiting at the Ngurah Rai International Airport to assist you to the luxury hotel in Ubud. You can check in anytime after 2:00PM. Once you’re checked in, feel free to relax at the infinity pool, book a massage at the spa, or just rest in your room for the evening and order dinner at the hotel restaurant. We know it was a long flight, so give yourself time to recover, so we can all start fresh in the morning with our first day of tours!

Welcome Circle, Yoga Class, Monkey Forest, Dinner in Ubud After breakfast at the hotel, we’ll have a welcome circle for all of us to introduce ourselves and get acquainted with our new Bali crew! Then, you’ll have the option to join in a group yoga class at the hotel. In the afternoon, we’ll head to the Sacred Monkey Forest to play with monkeys and share a delicious meal at the beautiful Indus restaurant with amazing Ubud views.

Water temple purification Ritual, Balinese Massage, Yoga class In the morning, we’ll get to experience the purification ceremony at a beautiful water temple in Ubud followed by a luxurious 90-minute Balinese massage at Putri Bali Spa (yes, it’s just as amazing as they say!) Then we’ll head to a famous yoga studio in Ubud called Yoga Barn. There, we’ll have a yummy vegan lunch at Yoga Barn’s Garden Cafe and explore with the option to take one of the many amazing yoga classes offered there.

Mt. Batur Volcano Sunrise Hike/Campuhan Ridge walk, Explore Ubud, Ubud Palace Performance On this day, you’ll have the exciting opportunity to hike up the Mt. Batur volcano to view the sunrise! The hike is physically challenging, but the view of the sunrise over Bali from the top of the volcano is absolutely breath-taking and definitely worth the effort! The Mt. Batur sunrise hike is recommended for those with hiking experience or who exercise on a regular basis. If you choose this option, we strongly suggest that you are in bed by 8:00 or 9:00pm the latest, so this would mean skipping the Yoga Barn class after dinner on the evening before. The second and much easier option would be to sleep in and do a peaceful walk at the Campuhan Ridge with lovely views as well! Whichever option you choose, you’ll have the afternoon to either take a nap at the hotel or explore Ubud and we’ll meet again for dinner at Pison restaurant before watching a performance of Balinese gamelan and legong dance at the Ubud Palace!

Surf and Swim in Canggu, La Brisa Beach Club Today, we’ll take a day trip from Ubud to Canggu, one of Bali’s most famous beaches! At Canggu, you’ll get to spend the whole day soaking up the sun and taking a dip in the Bali sea. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can also take a surf lesson on the beach (they average about $10 for an hour)! That evening, we’ll have a sunset dinner at La Brisa Beach Club before heading back to our hotel in Ubud.

Mask/Puppet Museum, Gamelan Smith, Welcome Gamelan Performance at Mekar Bhuana Center We’ve finally arrived to the music and cultural immersion portion of our trip! Today, we’ll get to meet our friend Vaughan, a professional gamelan musician and musicologist. Vaughan is the co-founder of Mekar Bhuana Center, where we’ll be studying Balinese music, with his beautiful wife, Evie, a Balinese dancer. Vaughan will take us on a personal tour of the Setia Darma House of Mask and Puppets and share his wealth of knowledge about Balinese culture and even take us to a gamelan smith in Ubud to see how the instruments are made! Then we’ll head to our hotel in Denpasar to rest and get ready to attend a welcome performance at Mekar Bhuana that evening!

Balinese Gamelan Introduction, Wayang Kulit (Shadow Puppet Theater) Private Workshop & Performance It’s our first full day at Mekar Bhuana!! We’ll start the morning off with an introduction to Balinese gamelan and a chance to try out many of the different instruments in a gamelan ensemble. In the afternoon, we’ll be visited by a famous Balinese puppeteer who will give us a workshop on the puppets and music used for wayang kulit, or Indonesian shadow puppet theater. We’ll even get a chance to paint our own handmade puppets! Once the sun goes down, we’ll cozy up by the light of the fire and watch a private wayang kulit performance live at Mekar Bhuana!

Gamelan workshop, Shotgun Social Group Dinner, Local Barong Ceremony Performance After a day of learning and practicing gamelan at Mekar Bhuana, we’ll head to Shotgun Social, a trendy restaurant in the nearby beach town of Sanur for a delicious group dinner. Then, we’ll have the special opportunity to attend a local barong ceremony. A barong is a mythical creature who is believed to protect the villages of Bali. At the ceremony, we’ll watch gamelan musicians and dancers perform in costume as the locals in the town pay tribute to their sacred barong guardian.

Gamelan Practice, Legong Dance, Gambang & Samara Pagulingan Gamelan Performances On these two days, we’ll be taking more workshops in gamelan and practicing with Vaughan and the other musicians for our final gamelan performance! Meanwhile, we’ll also get to experience a famous Balinese dance style called legong in a workshop with Evie! At night, we’ll view performances of two different gamelan styles by the musicians at Mekar Bhuana.

Final Performance at Annika Linden Community Center, Say Goodbye to Mekar Bhuana! It’s time to show off everything we’ve learned! This is an incredibly special day as we’ll be performing alongside our teachers at Mekar Bhuana and other gamelan musicians in the community as part of a fundraiser for the Annika Linden Disability Center. Annika Linden was founded in 2013 to support locals in the community who are in need of prosthetic limbs and physical therapy. After our performance, we’ll say our final goodbye to our friends at Mekar Bhuana with a ceremonial farewell dinner!

Padang-Padang beach, Sunset at Ulu Cliffhouse After an incredibly soul-filling cultural immersion experience, we’ll travel to Uluwatu to enjoy our last couple of days soaking up the beautiful Bali views one more time. Padang-Padang beach is one of the most famous beaches in this area (if you’ve ever seen “Eat, Pray, Love,” you’ll be familiar!). After checking into our hotel in Uluwatu, we’ll spend the day there before a beautiful sunset dinner at Ulu Cliffhouse.

Bingin Beach, Uluwatu Temple, Sunset Kecak Performance For our final full day in Bali, we’ll visit another beach in Uluwatu called Bingin. Here you can lay out in the sun or soak in the Bali sea for the day. Then, we’ll go to the Uluwatu Temple to see the famous Kecak dance at sunset while overlooking the beautiful seaside cliffs of Uluwatu.

After sharing a final breakfast together in Uluwatu, we’ll say goodbye to our new friends- for now! The memories created together on this beautiful trip will bond us forever. Our drivers will drop you off to Ngurah Rai Airport to begin your journey home.