Bali

Bali is the island where the sacred is infrastructure: twenty thousand temples, daily offerings on every doorstep — little palm-leaf trays of flowers, rice and incense the whole island sets out before breakfast —, and one day a year, Nyepi, when everything closes including the airport and the island goes silent, so the demons flying over find nobody home. The volcano Agung watches from the northeast, and every temple in Bali is built facing him.

The sensible traveller splits the island by altitude: the coasts for surf and sunsets — Uluwatu's temple on its cliff, Tanah Lot standing in the sea at dusk —; Ubud for the rice terraces, the monkeys with a pickpocket's ethics and the long green mornings; sunrise from Batur's rim for the fit and willing; and the Nusa islands when the mainland feels crowded. The sarong at temple gates is not a suggestion; rent one and wear it gladly.

The Guide's honesty: Bali's south can be one long traffic jam wearing a flower — the island's soul lives past the second rice paddy: go north, go east —; the offerings on the pavement are prayers, not litter: step around, never over; the monkeys of Ubud are professionals, and sunglasses, earrings and phones are their salary; and Nyepi is not an inconvenience but the island's finest lesson — book to be there for it, and spend one day a year in the quiet.