Canggu

Canggu was farmland until very recently. The coast here is a line of black volcanic sand broken by rivers, backed by the rice fields of villages such as Tibubeneng, Canggu and Pererenan, all part of the Mengwi kingdom's territory before the Dutch conquest and organised for centuries by subak irrigation societies that divide the water between terraces. Small sea temples stand on rocks along the shore, and the area's temples and cremation grounds remain in use.

Surfers came for the breaks, and the village hosted an international surfing event in 1990, but the beaches were hard to reach and the area stayed quiet long after Kuta, Legian and Seminyak had filled. Development crept north along the coast through the 1990s and 2000s, and villas began appearing among the rice fields. The change came in the 2010s, when cheap flights, a wave of Australian and European visitors, and then remote working turned Canggu into one of the island's fastest-growing districts: cafés, co-working spaces, hostels, gyms and beach clubs multiplied along the Batu Bolong road within a few years.

The Covid-19 border closures from 2020 emptied Bali for about two years, but Canggu recovered faster than the older resorts and attracted long-staying foreign residents in larger numbers than before. Building has continued northwards into Pererenan and Seseh, converting rice land to villas and putting pressure on lanes, water supply and drainage. Provincial authorities have since responded with rules aimed at visitors and with action against foreigners working without permits, much of the debate centred on this stretch of coast.

Two cultures share the same lanes. The Balinese one is intact: banjar councils organise ceremonies, temple anniversaries follow the 210-day calendar, penjor poles go up for Galungan, and processions in white walk down to the sea before Nyepi, when the island shuts entirely and even the airport closes. Village temples sit between cafés, and the rocks on the beach carry shrines dressed in checked cloth.

The other is a young international scene built around surfing, wellness and remote work: dawn surf sessions, gyms and yoga studios, cafés full of laptops, skateparks, and beach clubs where the day ends with the sunset. Canggu has become well known among digital nomads and remote workers, and a large foreign population lives here for months at a time, which has produced both a dense service economy and friction over rents, driving, noise and behaviour at sacred sites.

The friction is discussed openly in Bali. Provincial and national authorities have publicised rules on dress and conduct, and acted over unlicensed riding, over foreigners running businesses on tourist visas and over behaviour at sacred sites. For visitors the practical expectations are simple: dress modestly away from the beach, respect a ceremony blocking the road rather than pushing past it, and treat the villages as places where people live and worship rather than as a backdrop.

Canggu is not a single administrative unit but a group of villages mostly in the North Kuta district (Kuta Utara) of Badung Regency, a district of a little under 90,000 residents at recent counts, with a floating population of foreign visitors and long-stay residents that may equal it in the dry season. Many Indonesian workers here come from Java and other islands for jobs in construction, hospitality and transport, and live inland from the beach roads.

The economy is now almost entirely tourism and its services: villas and their management, cafés, restaurants, beach clubs, surf schools, gyms, salons, motorbike hire and delivery riders. Rice farming continues on the fields that remain, and some subak societies still meet, but land values have made conversion hard to resist. Traffic is the defining daily problem, along with waste collection, groundwater use and drainage that floods the lanes in heavy rain.

The rhythm is unusual: surfers and delivery riders are out before six, cafés fill mid-morning with people working, the middle of the day is hot and slow, and the coast fills again for sunset. Nights are earlier and quieter than in Kuta, though the beach clubs run late at weekends. Balinese households keep their own timetable of offerings at dawn, market shopping and ceremonies that take precedence over everything else.

Canggu is known more for cafés than for Balinese cooking, and its café food — brunch plates, smoothie bowls, sourdough, specialty coffee from Kintamani and other Indonesian highlands — is what most visitors eat. The range along the beach roads runs from Mexican and Japanese to Italian and Middle Eastern, and vegetarian and vegan menus are standard rather than exceptional, a legacy of the wellness and yoga scene that arrived with the surfers.

The Indonesian and Balinese food is a street or two inland. Warungs serve nasi campur — rice with lawar, satay, tempeh, urap vegetables and sambal — along with nasi goreng, mie goreng, gado-gado in peanut dressing and soto ayam. Balinese specialities appear at dedicated places: babi guling, the spit-roasted suckling pig rubbed with base genep spice paste; ayam or bebek betutu, poultry packed with spices and cooked slowly in leaves; and sate lilit, minced fish or pork pressed onto lemongrass sticks and grilled.

Sambal matah, a raw relish of sliced shallot, lemongrass, chilli and lime, comes with almost anything grilled, and jukut ares, a soup of banana stem, is a village dish. Fish landed by boats along this coast is grilled over coconut husks. Drinks run from Bintang beer and fresh coconut to arak, the palm or rice spirit best treated with caution given repeated poisonings from illicit batches, and young jackfruit, snakefruit and mangosteen appear on market stalls in season.