Hidden Waterfalls

Turn away from the sea and the land climbs into terraces, jungle and waterfalls few travellers reach.

The coast holds you at Tianyar, but the land behind it is worth the turn inland. Within an hour the road climbs through rice terraces into cooler, greener country.

Up in the folds of the hills are waterfalls that never make the guidebooks, reached on foot, down a path, through the trees. They are cold, clear and, most days, empty.

It makes for a good half day: up into the green, a swim beneath the falls, lunch in a village on the way down, and back to the pebbled shore by afternoon. The land and the sea, both within reach, both unhurried.

The drive up is half the pleasure. The road passes temples and offerings drying in the sun, the air thick with clove smoke and wet green, and the temperature drops with every bend. By the time you reach the trees the coast feels a long way below.

The falls themselves are cold and loud after the flat calm of the shore, tucked into the hills where few people bother to go. You will likely have them to yourself. Then it is back down through the terraces, the sea widening ahead, and the pebbles sun-warmed again by the time you arrive.

VELA Tianyar sits below these same hills, on the pebbled shore where the walk back down ends.