One Perfect Day in Medewi (When You’re Not Surfing)

Most people come to Medewi for the wave, and fair enough. Medewi Point is one of the longest lefts on Bali, a boulder-bottom point that peels for three hundred metres and more on a good day, and it will happily keep you busy until your arms give out. But we live here year-round, and some of our favourite days are the slow ones, the days when the swell takes a breather, or your shoulders do, and the village gets a chance to show you everything else it has.

So here is what one of those days can look like, from first light to the last ember of a beach bonfire. None of it is a tour. It is just West Bali doing what West Bali does every day, whether anyone is watching or not. That, honestly, is the best part.

Dawn at the point

Even on a day off, start at the point. From our surfhouse in Yeh Sumbul it is a two-minute walk, and before 9am the coast is at its absolute best: glassy water, a light offshore breeze coming down from the mountains, and a handful of surfers trading long, unhurried walls while the sky goes from grey to pink to gold. Bring a coffee, find a spot on the boulders, and just watch a wave do its thing for a few hundred metres at a time. It never gets old, even for us.

The fishermen come in around now too, dragging their striped jukung outriggers up the dark sand and sorting the night’s catch while the village dogs supervise. If watching the lineup makes your feet itch after all, there are more waves within a short ride in either direction, and we have written up the spots around Medewi so you know what you are looking at.

Breakfast, the warung way

Skip anything with the word “bowl” in the name and walk to a warung on the main road for nasi campur: a scoop of rice topped with whatever was cooked fresh that morning. Maybe tempeh in sweet soy, a fried egg, some water spinach, shredded chicken, and a spoonful of sambal that will wake you up faster than the coffee does. Speaking of coffee, order a kopi Bali and give the grounds a minute to settle before you drink. The whole breakfast costs about as much as the parking fee at a beach club further east.

Take your time with it. A warung is less a restaurant than a living room with a menu, and if you eat at the same one three mornings in a row, the owner will know your order, your name, and probably your surf schedule better than you do.

Through the rice fields of Yeh Sumbul

Mid-morning, walk or take a scooter into the fields behind the village. Yeh Sumbul sits in a green wedge between the mountains and the sea: rice terraces stepping down towards the coast, coconut groves, irrigation channels running everywhere, farmers in wide hats, ducks on patrol, kids on bicycles shouting hello. Depending on the month, the paddies are mirror-flat with water, impossibly green, or golden and busy with harvest. All three versions are worth the detour.

There is no route to follow, which is rather the point. Head vaguely uphill, take the small concrete lanes, stop when something smells good. You will not get seriously lost; every lane eventually drops you back near the coast road. Our Medewi guide has more on the village and the area if you like to put names to what you are seeing.

Rambut Siwi, the temple above the sea

About fifteen minutes further west by scooter, Pura Rambut Siwi stands on a low cliff with the black sand beach running away beneath it in both directions. It is one of West Bali’s most important sea temples, linked to Dang Hyang Nirartha, the same sixteenth-century priest behind Tanah Lot. The difference is that here you might share the whole place with one caretaker, the wind, and a few swallows. Bring a sarong, keep your voice down during prayers, and give yourself time to just sit with the view down the coast.

If you would rather visit with someone who can actually explain what you are looking at, ceremonies included when the Balinese calendar allows, that is one of the things we happily arrange through our experiences, along with cooking classes, waterfall trips and a few other local favourites.

The slow afternoon, then sunset and a bonfire

Back at the surfhouse, do as the village does and disappear for a while. The hours after lunch are hot and quiet, the fields empty out, and there is no shame at all in a nap under the fan while the palms sort out the breeze. If you would rather be kneaded than horizontal, ask us to book you a Balinese massage. After a week of surfing, an hour on the table is less a luxury than basic maintenance, and it costs a fraction of what you would pay in the south.

By half past five, drift back down to the beach. Medewi faces the open water to the west, so the sun sets over the sea more or less every evening, behind the returning fishing boats, and on a clear night behind the volcanoes of East Java. The point fills with a small, mellow sunset crowd, silhouettes gliding along walls of gold. It is the kind of scene that made us move here in the first place.

Dinner is fish, obviously. Grilled snapper or mahi-mahi that was swimming that morning, rice, sambal matah, a wedge of lime, your feet in the sand. When the night is right we light a bonfire, someone finds a guitar, and the day ends the way West Bali days should: slowly, and slightly smoky. If you want to learn to make that sambal yourself, the cooking class is a guest favourite, and we will happily set it up.

Come and spend that day with us

The honest version of this article is that a perfect day in Medewi usually does have a surf in it, because the wave here is long, forgiving and blissfully uncrowded, and our surf coaching, complete with filmed sessions and video analysis, makes the most of it. But the days in between are why people come back. This is Bali before it became famous: remote-feeling, yet full of life. Getting here takes around two to two and a half hours from the airport, and our guide on getting to Medewi covers every option. The rooms at DISINI are steps from the point. The rest of the day, as you have just read, takes care of itself.