Sidemen Valley in Bali
Part of the Bali travel guide — see every topic in All Bali Guides.
Sidemen sits in a river valley on the southern flank of Mount Agung, about ninety minutes east of Ubud, and it is the answer to the complaint that Bali has been ruined. The rice terraces here are as good as anything at Tegallalang and there is nobody photographing them. The villages weave songket and endek cloth on backstrap looms. There are no clubs, no traffic and no tour buses, and the valley narrows towards a volcano that fills the northern sky on a clear morning.
Walking the valley
This is walking country and the best of it needs no guide: paths run along the irrigation bunds between terraces, past shrines and drying racks, connecting villages that are an hour apart on foot and forty minutes by road. A guide from your homestay costs 150,000–300,000 rupiah for a half day and is worth it for the explanation of the subak water system and for access to family compounds. Longer walks climb towards Pura Bukit Tageh for the valley panorama. Go early — the light is best before eight and Agung is usually clouded by ten.
Weaving
Sidemen is one of Bali's weaving centres. Endek is a weft-ikat cloth where the thread is tie-dyed before weaving; songket adds supplementary gold or silver thread on a backstrap or pedal loom, and a complex piece takes weeks. Several workshops in the villages will show the whole process from thread-dyeing to loom, and sell directly. Prices for a genuine hand-woven songket run from several hundred thousand rupiah into the millions, and it is worth understanding that the cheap machine-made versions on Kuta beach are a different product entirely.
Where to stay and eat
Accommodation is homestays and small design hotels built into the terraces — 250,000–600,000 rupiah for a homestay room, 1–4 million for the boutique properties, several of which have infinity pools looking straight at Agung. Almost all include breakfast on a terrace over the valley, which is the reason to be here. Eating is warungs and hotel restaurants; there is no restaurant scene and there does not need to be. Bring cash: there is one ATM in Sidemen village and it is not always working.
Using it as a base
Sidemen is well placed for the east. Tirta Gangga and Taman Ujung, the 1940s royal water gardens, are forty minutes away. Amed and Tulamben's diving is an hour. Besakih, the largest temple complex on Bali, sits on Agung's flank half an hour north. Candidasa and the white sand of Virgin Beach are forty minutes south-east. Padang Bai, for the Gili and Lombok ferries, is thirty minutes. It is ninety minutes from Ubud and two hours from the airport, which is exactly far enough to have kept it as it is.
Sidemen Valley at a glance
| Setting | River valley on Mount Agung's southern flank |
|---|---|
| Distance | ~90 min from Ubud, ~2 h from the airport |
| Homestay | IDR 250,000–600,000; boutique IDR 1m–4m |
| Local craft | Endek and songket weaving on backstrap looms |
| Guided walk | IDR 150,000–300,000 for a half day |
| Best light | Before 8am — Agung clouds over by 10 |