Slow days in Ubud: yoga, sound, massage and the plant-based table

People come to Ubud for the rice fields and the arts, and stay for the yoga. A day of the island’s wellness, from the first class to a sound bath at dusk, with the studios, retreats and plant-based cafés in our guide.

Ubud wakes early. By the time the mist lifts off the rice fields the first yoga classes are already under way, and by mid-morning the town’s cafés are full of people in linen, comparing teachers. Wellness here is not a hotel add-on but a way of spending the day, and you can plan one entirely around it.

The morning class

The Yoga Barn opened in 2007 with two studios, a small vegan café and four classes a day; today it is a retreat centre five minutes’ walk from the Sacred Monkey Forest, open to every level, with daily classes, ecstatic dance, workshops and teacher trainings. Drive to the main entrance on Jalan Sukma Kesuma, or walk in from the Monkey Forest end of town.

For something smaller, Radiantly Alive has been a working studio on Jalan Jembawan since 2010, open daily, in its own words; drop in for a class, and you will see why so many of its students stay on for its teacher trainings.

Retreats on the Ayung

If you would rather the programme came to you, stay where wellness is the point. COMO Shambhala Estate, at Begawan above the Ayung river, is built around it, with spa treatments, yoga and its own cuisine. Fivelements, on the Ayung south-west of Ubud, offers healing programmes, yoga and plant-based food, and Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, has its own spa beside the river at Kedewatan.

Sound and stillness

Afternoons are for something gentler. Pyramids of Chi, at Bentuyung on the edge of Ubud, has been dedicated to sound and wellbeing since 2017; its ancient sound-healing sessions run every two hours from 10am, with meditations, breathwork and cacao ceremonies on the calendar. Book a session online and lie back as the gongs and bowls do the work.

In Ubud, the day starts on a yoga mat and ends with a sound bath.

The plant-based table

Ubud eats lightly, and well. At Alchemy, on Jalan Penestanan Kelod, the whole menu is plant-based and gluten-free, much of it raw, never heated above 43°C, in its own words. Nearby, on Jalan Raya Penestanan Kelod, Zest is entirely vegan and cooks from what it calls the Balinese food forest: try the jungle porridge of heritage red rice, snakeskin fruit and mango.

Sayuri Healing Food, on Jalan Sukma Kesuma, is a café and a cookery school at once, training raw and vegan chefs; it opens daily until 11pm, and its evenings bring kirtan and dance. In Canggu, The Shady Shack serves vegetarian and vegan wholefoods under the trees from 8am to 10pm.

The massage

Save the massage for the coast. Jari Menari, “dancing fingers”, has worked in Seminyak since 2001; its all-male team gives a massage of long, firm strokes and steady, rhythmic pressure, and teaches it in workshops too. Sit in the garden afterwards before you face the traffic.

Our advice: take the earliest class you can, when Ubud is cool and quiet; book sound sessions and massages a day ahead in high season; and leave an afternoon empty, because the best part of a wellness day in Bali is the nap that follows it.