Bali yoga retreat: Is this Bali's most relaxing hideaway?

In the restorative tropical surrounds of Ubud, Despina Meris finds serenity, spirituality, new yoga poses – and herself.

Tirta Empul

It’s after nightfall, and I stand waist-deep in a large pool of cool water, direct from the mountain springs.

Wrapped in the olive green sarong gifted to me by my host, I wade toward the 12 springs each representing varying elements of life: health, family, love and so on. My hands are brought together in prayer, I raise them to my forehead (representing the third eye) and allow the spring water to pour over me. I then submerge myself into the pool.

Tirta Empul is considered to be the holiest place in Bali. The Balinese hold pilgrimages to these sacred springs to cleanse themselves spiritually. There are Balinese here tonight in various stages of prayer, dressed in ceremonial attire. This is the first night of my Come Home to Bali retreat and already I am faced with the opportunity to shed the old and start afresh.

When I booked this retreat I was stressed, overwhelmed and in need of some time out. This trip is already set to be much more profound than that.

The monk’s chanting is otherworldly, hauntingly deep and primal, rising up from deep within his core. I feel the vibration of his mantras pass right through me, connecting with me on an energetic level. ‘Om’ is all that I understand, but I gather that the earthly meaning of the words is not important.

In search of a spiritual experience

I am a spiritual person at heart, but the busyness of life has resulted in me becoming hyper-focused on the tangible, like watching my life under a magnifying glass. But here I’m being reminded that there are higher energies at play; my spirituality has been awakened again.

For weeks before I left home to travel to Bali there had been a tightness in my heart, and tonight, for the first time, I recognise it as fear. Certain things in my life aren’t going to plan, but there is nothing to warrant proper fear: no threat to my health or my safety. The feeling is definitely there though: maybe it’s fear of failure, fear of not achieving perfection, fear of the unknown.

My eyes well up at the thought of being free from these self-imposed restrictions. Gliding through the refreshing water on silken time-worn stones, I repeat my mantra to love myself, to free myself and to trust in the universe.

Cleansing and relaxing at Come Home to Bali yoga retreat

Praying

In Bali, praying is an intricate process, swelling with symbolism and intention. Incense is lit to call the Gods to listen to prayer, and flowers used to symbolise the earthly manifestations of the divine. I’m guided to cleanse my hands and face with the smoke of the incense and hold flowers in my fingertips as I pray. The monk blesses me with holy water and rice grains representing prosperity. This moment is achingly beautiful.

A bracelet of red, black and white string is tied around my wrist. It represents the circle of life: birth, life and death, and back to rebirth. I feel light and at peace.

The villa

After a restful night’s sleep, I open the door to my villa and am engulfed by the lush tropical paradise around me, a landscape of towering palm trees, ferns and rice paddies carved into the Ubud hills.

Along winding paths are stone sculptures of Hindu deities, graced with rice offerings to the Gods. One such path leads me to the open-air yoga pavilion, surrounded by vivid green jungle. The sights and sounds of nature – birds chirping, trills of the geckos, giant leaves rustling – keep us in the present moment.

The Balinese are deeply in touch with nature, believing that everything has a spiritual entity – every field, every tree, every blade of grass.

Yoga

Jim, our instructor, has dedicated his life to yoga practice, meditation, and eastern religions. As a result, he is incredibly calm and centred. He advises us early on to let go of our egos, handy advice when it comes time for headstands.

Although I’ve never done two consecutive hours of yoga, I’m surprised to find it rejuvenating rather than tiring. The first improvement is to my breathing: it starts out quite shallow and I struggle to expand my lungs. By the second day, my body becomes expansive, with oxygen travelling to my lungs, my diaphragm, my lower back. There is a shift, as if I’m letting life’s energy flow through me, rather than fighting it.

Sun salutations, downward dogs, bridges and forward bends are punctuated with lessons on life. I learn to find beauty in small things: the breeze against my moist skin, the smell of moss, the glistening rain drops on the leaves. I become very present and aware. Even the taste of food is enhanced.

By day three, the yoga practice has markedly improved my clarity and outlook. I feel like I am glowing from the inside, and I notice that my skin looks rosy and fresh.

Challenging moves highlight my nature to force outcomes; Jim’s advice is to practise surrender here, to breathe through the posture and allow the posture to flow instead of forcing it. Control is also rooted in fear; this is obviously a common theme for me.

Unwind at Come Home to Bali yoga retreat.

The staff

The retreat staff is attentive, content, present and grateful – a reflection of broader Hindu beliefs. Hindus believe in karma; that each individual creates his own destiny by his thoughts, words and deeds. Every exchange that I have with them makes me want to become a better version of myself.

Bike riding

On day four we are scheduled to undertake a 22-kilometre bike ride and I am dreading it. True, it is mostly down hill, but I have not been on a bike since having hamstring surgery and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to do it.

Given my breakthrough about living without fear, I have to give it a go. I start out wobbly and unsure, but it’s not long before I’m flying down the mountain at top speed, standing up on the pedals like I did when I was a kid.

We ride past palm trees, rice paddies and cacao plants. In the villages, women dry rice in the sun, men carve wooden sculptures and giddy children high-five us as we ride by. I feel exhilarated, completely free and capable of achieving anything.

Transformation

By the time we set off on an excursion to practise yoga at Batur Volcano, I have clarity. Every time I come up from a pose, the view has changed. Clear and sunny fades to mysterious fog, the volcano appears and disappears: a metaphor for the transience of life.

So, what is my lesson to learn? Life is full of the unexpected and instead of trying to control every outcome I should welcome the unknown and stop living in fear. I can choose to embrace life, throw myself into it head-on and keep my sense of adventure alive.

As the saying goes, sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. Retreats are a chance to take a step back and see the bigger picture more clearly. For anyone seeking to re-engage with their life’s purpose and stamp out self-limiting beliefs, a retreat isn’t a luxury, but a necessity.

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Details

How to get there

Jetstar have daily flights from Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin to Denpasar, Bali. Flights from Brisbane depart four times a week. Ubud is a one-hour drive from the airport.

Contact

One World Retreats

Jalan Suweta Lorong Mawar, Ubud

oneworldretreats.com

Cost

Come Home to Bali yoga retreat is from $1627 for a single, $1339 twin share.

What to bring home

A new outlook.

After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?

In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.

Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?

Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?

How tourism is changing in Nepal

Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.

Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.

“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.

Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”

Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”

CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.

A new generation demanding more

Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”

We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”

Boudha Stupa's prayer wheels — Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…

bouda stupa prayer flags — Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.

Boudha Stupa vendors — Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.

A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.

Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.

Life unfiltered in the Terai region

tharu woman — Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.

Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.

Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.

Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.

On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.

community homestay entrance — A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.

The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.

In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.

food at community homestay — Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.

The power of community homestays

community homestay owners in Nepal — Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.

“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”

The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.

Sonara community room — An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.

Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.

CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.

“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.

In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.

“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”

Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”

Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.

Bali yoga retreat: Is this Bali’s most relaxing hideaway?