Everyone starts with Bali. We start around it — Lombok to the east, Komodo beyond it, the volcanoes of East Java to the west — and then land on the island itself with better questions. Every story below comes with a practical guide to standing where it happened.
Why you don't wear green on the southern beaches — an exiled princess, a drowned kingdom, and a royal marriage contract still honored today.
A widow-witch of ancient Java, a guardian lion, and the trance ritual where daggers bend against bare skin.
Coming soonA god stabbed the earth a thousand years ago. Pilgrims have been bathing in the wound ever since.
Coming soonThe Sasak princess who chose the ocean over war — and returns every year as sea worms, on schedule.
Coming soonOn Flores, they'll tell you the dragons are family. Literally.
Coming soonThe Tenggerese origin of Mount Bromo, and the festival where a whole people feeds a crater.
Coming soon