Kerobokan is on the western fringe of the provincial capital, Denpasar. Here, at a busy crossroads, on the rooftop of Gate 88 Mall, is the monstrous tail section of a McDonnell Douglas DC 10 with parts of the horizontal stabilisers – the smaller wings at the rear – protruding three storeys above a steady stream of cars and motorbikes.

The mall is now home to a co-working space and cafe. The staff know nothing about the DC 10 tail or how it got there, but online sources say the plane from which it came began life as a passenger jet in Britain in the 1970s before being repurposed as a cargo plane in the United States. The aircraft was then sold to a cargo operator in Zimbabwe, southern Africa, and eventually scrapped.

In a place with no airport, restaurant in a Boeing 707 is off to a flier

On July 1, 2017, jet-setters in Bali amassed on the rooftop of Gate 88 for the opening of High-Fi, a nightclub with the DC-10 tail section as its centrepiece. High-Fi closed its doors at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic but the owner still turns a profit from the DC-10, charging a million rupiah (US$70) just to take a look at the aircraft from the roof.

To the south, down six-lane Sunset Road, is the international airport and, two kilometres (1¼ miles) from the runway, a Boeing 737 sitting on plinths in a lot across the road from an empty Dunkin’ Donuts outlet.

It was moved there from the Javanese city of Yogyakarta in 2012 by Arif Harsono, owner of Aircrew Sensation, a flight simulator training provider in the national capital, Jakarta.

“I planned to create a training site here for aircrew but I failed to secure a partnership with an airline at the time,” Harsono says.

For most of the past decade, the Boeing sat at the mercy of graffiti artists and locals who charged tourists US$5 to look inside. But at the start of this year, Harsono put up a fence and gave the aircraft a fresh coast of white paint. He added a flight simulator and is now building a cafe. The venue is scheduled to open in July.

“I’m confident it will be a success because every day people have stopped here to take photos,” Harsono says. “Now, with the new paint, the plane looks new again.”

Bali’s south coast is known as billionaires’ row – a series of sea cliffs with epic Indian Ocean views above dreamlike beaches that are home to multimillion-dollar villas, luxury resorts by the likes of Bulgari and Six Senses, and exclusive pool clubs like El Kabron.

The cliffs are now also home to a Boeing 737-200 owned by Russian entrepreneur Felix Demin, who moved it from an old quarry 15km down the road. The aircraft had been sitting there for eight years after an Australian investor bought it from Mandala, a precursor of Tiger Airlines, with the idea of turning it into a nightclub but ran out of money.

Demin is unlikely to face the same problem. He owns a logistics company in China and Bubble Hotel Bali – a chain at which guests stay in a transparent bubble for the night that has been rated by Airbnb as one of the world’s 10 most unique places to stay. When asked, he says he and his family have no connection to Vladimir Putin or Russia’s oligarchs.

“Moving the plane cost a small fortune and took five days. We had to bring in special equipment from Java: a 16-metre-long (52ft long) truck, a 50-tonne (55-ton) crane and another 25-tonne crane,” Demin says. “The permits alone were a nightmare; we had to have a police escort and cut several overhanging electricity wires along the way.

“In Bali, the roads are small so at a few places, we had to disassemble the plane in the middle of the road and reassemble it around the corner. Everything else I have done in business before this has been kindergarten compared to this.”

Now the aircraft has landed, Demin plans on converting it into the world’s first luxury villa inside a retired passenger jet. It will feature a white leather interior, two beds, a lounge, a jacuzzi in the cockpit and a sunset terrace on the ocean-facing wing. It will cost thousands of dollars to stay here for just one night.

“The interest I have received so far has been incredible. I have [ …] had to put a security guard and gate because every day 150 people want to look inside,” he says.

The drawcard, Demin believes, is not the plane per se but the location and the concept behind it. “Once this is ready, it will be one of the most unique villas in the world, floating 150 metres above on a cliff above the ocean with the most amazing views in all of Bali.”

There is one more repurposed plane in Bali: the Keramas Aero Park, an inflight restaurant and bar on the east coast where guests can wine and dine inside a retired Boeing 737. But during my visit, I’m the only guest, and judging by the looks of staff who sit around playing with their phones, the first for a while.

The “inflight” menu is no different to that of any other inexpensive restaurant in Bali, so I buy just a drink and climb the staircase leading up to the Boeing to take a look.

The views of surrounding rice fields, the coast and the outlying islands of the Penida Archipelago are impressive, but the aircraft is in urgent need of a paint job and the interior is a mess.

The instrument panel has gone, replaced with a print of an instrument panel. There are half a dozen plastic tables and chairs in the fuselage. All I want to do is leave.

Demin’s clifftop villa-in-a-plane will no doubt be a hit and High-Fi Gate 88 will probably fly sky high again after the pandemic. But even here, at this rundown place, it’s clear grounded passenger jets offer something novel: the ability to connect with these flying titans in a way modern airports, which detach us from the flying experience, cannot.

As I walk around the old Boeing, I gain a more intimate appreciation of the detail and scale of it, of the miracle of engineering and science that allows us to soar through the clouds.