Ubud’s Rice Terraces & Waterfalls // Bali Travel Diary – Part 1

Hello darlings!  As many of you have seen from my social feeds, my husband and I just returned from a three week trip exploring South East Asia. While I had planned to keep working and uploading new blog posts during my trip, my laptop completely stopped working a few days after we left. With no way to edit photos & upload new posts, I have been nearly bursting at the seams waiting to be able to share all the photos and stories from our trip. Anyways, without further adieu, today I’m taking you through one of our favourite places we visited on our travels… Ubud, Bali!

Bali was easily my favourite location we visited. The food was amazing, the views were incredible and the locals we met were all wonderfully kind & inviting. It was also very easy to get around with plenty of taxi’s available and credit cards being widely accepted.

On one of our first days in Ubud, we hired a driver for the day to explore the sights outside of the main town. I decided to wear my pretty floral maxi dress from SheIn because I knew we would be visiting some sacred Balinese temples during the day.  This dress ended up being the perfect outfit choice because the chiffon-like fabric was light and breezy enough to keep me cool in the tropical heat while keeping my knees and shoulders covered (a requirement for entering most Balinese temples).

When I’m traveling, I prefer to keep accessories simple. I paired this pretty floral dress with a simple skinny white belt and a gold statement necklace for a little hint of sparkle (ps. This statement necklace will be coming to my jewellery boutique very soon!!). Later in the afternoon, I added my favourite boater hat to the look to get some extra sun protection for my ultra-fair skin.

Our first stop during the day was the Tegallalang rice terraces. It was incredible to see all of the layers cut into the hills, as well as to watch local farmers plant the the rice into the water while wearing traditional conical hats.

Afterwards, we went to visit two Balinese temples, Tirta Empul (aka. the holy spring water temple) and Goa Gajah (aka. the Elephant Cave). While both locations were interesting and beautiful in their own right, nothing compared to awe inspiring ancient temple we visited next.

Gunung Kawi is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. After walking down over 300 steps into the canyon you cross over an ancient bridge into the jungle where you can walk right up to these towering monuments carved into the cliff. A magical waterfall running right beside it makes the view only that much more incredible. Shockingly there were almost no tourists and we got to enjoy this spectacular view all to ourselves.

We finished off the day by heading to Tegenungan Waterfall. Having lived most of my life in the land-locked prairies of Canada, I’d never seen a waterfall this large and powerful in person before. I was absolutely amazed by the thundering roar it produced, and the sheer strength of the water and waves.

I hope you all enjoyed this first part of our Bali travel diary!  I’ll be sharing more photos from our trip soon, as well as tons of recommendations for things to do, places to eat and what to wear when traveling through this part of the globe!  If there is anything in particular you’d love to see a post about, make sure to leave a comment below.