Sidemen is a picturesque town found inland on the east of Bali. The area is surrounded by rice fields, mountains and rivers. We had the pleasure of staying in Sidemen for 4 nights and below are all the things we recommend you should do if you are in the area!
Lahangan Sweet
About an hours drive away from Sidemen you can visit quite possibly the best viewpoint in Bali, in our opinion anyway! Lahangan Sweet gives a 360 view of the area and overlooks Mount Agung, the ocean and the beautiful landscape of East Bali. There are some amazing photo opportunities here, with platforms in the trees, wooden boats pointing towards the ocean and other platforms dotted around. We recommend coming here with a picnic or going at sunset, as we can only imagine how beautiful that would be.
If you are making the journey yourself by bike, then the drive there from Sidemen is quite hilly and windy. We did it with two people on one bike which was fine, but a bit of a struggle. Lahangan Sweet is at the top of a huge hill and the path up is very stony and bumpy, so we recommend leaving your bike at the bottom and hiking the 800 metres up if you aren’t a pro biker. If you don’t fancy the hike, you can pay to go up on the back of one of the workers bikes.
Gembleng Waterfall
Gembleng Waterfall is a beautiful waterfall that has multiple little pools and stunning views. We went at around 3:30pm and there weren’t many people there. Take a picnic or some drinks and relax in one of the pools for a while.
Arung Silver
Arung Silver hosts workshops where you can learn how to make silver jewellery and create your own piece with unique designs. Most people create rings, however you can also make a bracelet and potentially other types of jewellery if you wanted. It costs 450,000 per person and includes 5 grams of silver. Any extra gram you use will cost 50,000. We actually created our wedding rings here and both of our rings came to 11 grams together.
White Water rafting
You are able to do white water rafting in Sidemen and it was such a fun experience. The rapids themselves aren’t too crazy, so don’t worry if you haven’t ever done it before as it wasn’t scary or strenuous. We had a really fun instructor, who made the experience even more entertaining. The experience lasts about 3 hours and the company we went with had lunch included. During the 3 hours you stop and visit a waterfall and do two different four metre drops. You do get wet at points from water splashing in, so make sure you bring a spare change of clothes for afterwards to change into.
Without A Paddle Travel 