Diamond Beach

Diamond Beach in Bali sits below a cliff so sheer that for generations only fishermen dared touch it, until sometime after 2018 someone decided to carve a staircase into the limestone. The guide follows the Javanese laborers who took the job after local workers called it too dangerous, chiseling a hundred and sixty-six steps and a hand-strung rope rail into the raw rock. Look at the walls as you descend: the chisel marks are still raw, because the staircase was never meant to look pretty.