Tegenungan is the Bali waterfall you reach without climbing into the mountains, which is exactly why it has become the busiest fall on the island. Most of Bali's cascades hide high in the volcanic north; Tegenungan drops just south of Ubud at only about 90 metres above sea level, where the Petanu River spills some 15 metres into a wide green pool. It is a broad white curtain rather than a thin column, framed by palms and giant ferns in a steep valley you can walk down in a few minutes. The river that feeds it drains the highlands around Mount Batur. Older Balinese belief treats the Petanu with real dread: there is a curse attached to this water that has nothing to do with the crowds now filling the gorge.
A concrete stairway of around two hundred steps drops from the rim to the riverbank. The closer you get, the more the falls take over: the roar off the rock, the cool spray, the tug of the current where the water lands. From the upper edge the scene reads as a single column of white against dark-green forest. Down at the pool it turns busier, with swimmers cooling in the shallows and people picking their way over the boulders. Come at first light, around opening, and the cool air and soft light are almost yours before the tour buses arrive. The falls run year-round but shift with the rains: from April to October the water clears to a green sheen and is calmest for swimming, while November to March sends it down browner and far stronger. Cafés and photo decks now crowd the rim, and the village on the far bank runs its own terraces facing the water.