Ubud to Sidemen

Sidemen is roughly 35 km east of Ubud and takes about an hour and a half. The distance suggests less, but almost none of it is fast road: you are crossing river valleys the whole way, which means dropping down and climbing back out four or five times.

It is one of the better drives in Bali, and the standard second leg of an east-island loop. Most people are heading on to Amed or the Lombok ferry afterwards.

The route

The usual line runs southeast out of Ubud through Gianyar, then east to Klungkung, where the road turns inland and climbs into the valley. It is the least demanding option and the one every driver will take by default.

There is a second, prettier line north and east through Bangli and Rendang, along the southern skirt of Mount Agung. It is currently closed on a broken bridge. Maps will still route you over it, so if a driver proposes that way, they have not been up there recently.

Your options

Private car with driver

Rp 400.000 one way for the car, up to 4 people with luggage. This is what most people do, and it is the only option that lets you stop on the way without renegotiating anything.

Hiring a driver for the full day instead, at Rp 800.000, is worth considering if you want to see Besakih or Tirta Gangga on the way. You are paying for the day rather than the distance, and the drive to Sidemen only uses part of it.

Scooter

Honestly: it is a lovely ride, and if you are an experienced rider travelling light it is the best way to make the trip. The road is in reasonable condition and the traffic thins out quickly past Gianyar.

The caveats are real, though. You need an international licence with a motorcycle endorsement to be insured and to survive a police check, the rain arrives fast and hard in the wet season, and hauling two large suitcases up a mountain road is genuinely unpleasant. A lot of people split the difference: send the bags ahead by car, ride down unencumbered.

Ride-hailing

Grab and Gojek will sometimes quote this route out of Ubud, at less than a private car. Two things to know. Drivers cancel long fares like this one fairly often once they realise how far out of their zone it takes them. And getting a return trip by app from Sidemen is close to impossible, because there is no driver pool sitting in the valley waiting for pings.

Fine as a one-way if you are flexible. Not something to build a schedule around.

Tourist shuttle

There are none. The shared shuttle operators that connect Ubud with Amed, Lovina and the ferry ports do not run to Sidemen, and nothing else does either. If a booking site offers you a shuttle seat to Sidemen, check very carefully where it actually stops.

Worth stopping for

• Besakih. Bali's mother temple, high on Agung's slope and only about thirty minutes from Sidemen, so it works as an easy half-day from the valley rather than something to squeeze into the transfer. Busy in the middle of the day, and there is a dress code.
• Kertha Gosa, Klungkung. The old royal courthouse, with a painted ceiling that runs through the whole Balinese moral universe. Twenty minutes and directly on the road.
• The Agung viewpoints. The mountain is the reason to look up on this drive, and the good places to do it are named: the restaurants at Rendang, Bukit Cinta, and Lahangan Sweet further east in Karangasem. Lahangan Sweet is the most spectacular and the furthest out of the way, so it belongs in a day trip rather than a transfer. Tell the driver before you set off if you want to stop.

Going on afterwards

Amed is about an hour and a half further east, Padang Bai and the Lombok and Gili ferries are around an hour south, and the airport is two to two and a half hours back the way you came. If you are flying out, arrange that leg while you are still in the valley rather than on the morning itself.