What it's really like to swim with wild dolphins in Bali

We leave the shore while it's still dark, the outrigger boats slipping over a glassy sea. Nobody talks much — everyone's watching the horizon.

Then the sun breaks, the water turns gold, and the first fins appear. Within minutes there are dozens of them, arcing and diving around the boat. You slide into the warm water and they're right there, curious and fast.

It's the kind of morning you don't photograph well — you just live it. And it's exactly why we put Bali at the end of the trip: a calm, joyful finish after the volcanoes and waterfalls of Java.