Uluwatu's Cliff Beaches: Padang Padang, Bingin, Suluban, Balangan and the Tide That Hides Them

The Bukit peninsula is a limestone plateau with its edges eaten into coves, and the beaches are at the bottom of the cliffs: small, white-sand, reached by staircases cut into the rock, and utterly unlike the long black-sand surf beaches further north. They are the most beautiful beaches on the mainland of Bali and the ones with the most conditions attached.

The biggest condition is the tide. Several of these coves are wide sand at low tide and a strip of rock and foam at high; the reef that makes the surf famous is also what makes a wrong-time swim dangerous.

The famous one, reached through a narrow cleft in the rock and down a staircase past macaques. Small, sheltered, sandy, and swimmable at mid to high tide when the water over the reef is deep enough. At low tide the reef is exposed and it is a rock pool. It is also a world-class surf break in the dry season, with a left-hander that draws professionals, and on those days the beach is a spectator stand.

It gets full. Go early, or in the last two hours of light.

Bingin is a long, steep staircase down through a cluster of cliffside guesthouses and warungs to a narrow beach with a reef break in front of it. At high tide there is almost no sand and the swimming is between waves; at low tide it is a shelf of rock. It is a surfers' beach that happens to be lovely to sit above with a drink.

Suluban, under the cliffs near the temple, is the Uluwatu surf break's beach: a cave passage down to a sliver of sand that vanishes at high tide, and the best place on the island to watch serious surfing from the cliff bars above.

Balangan is the swimmer's answer: longer, wider and sandier than the others, with a gentler reef, warungs with sunbeds, and a cliff viewpoint at the north end that is one of the peninsula's best. Mid to high tide for swimming.

Melasti, on the south coast of the Bukit, is reached by a road cut down through the cliff rather than stairs, which makes it the accessible choice, and its wide sand and clear shallows at low tide suit families. It has beach clubs now and a fee at the road.

Every beach except Melasti is a staircase, and climbing back up at three in the afternoon in full sun is the part people forget. Carry water down. Shade on the sand is rented from the warungs. Reef shoes are worth having anywhere you will walk in the water at low tide.

Check the tide before you commit to a cove, or let a driver who knows the peninsula choose the beach for the hour; the tours listed here for Uluwatu are built that way.