Ubud, Bali

The horse cart took us to the southern shore of Gili Air where we were going to load into the fast boat. Not making any assumptions this time, I wore sandals fully expecting to load off the shore – and I wasn’t disappointed. A fast boat, with several tourists sitting on the roof, pulled up to shore and started off loading luggage and people. The locals brought up a small wooden platform for people to step onto from the front of the boat (where they first had to crawl over a railing).

We got on the boat and seated inside – three seats on each side. The boat sped across the water, bouncing and slamming as it went. Water started pouring into my closed window so I was glad that we had an empty seat beside us. Passengers who were sitting on top made their way inside, soaking wet; and one poor woman to the left of us vomited into a bag. She already had 4 sitting at her feet. We exchanged passengers at Gili Trawangan and started on our bouncy FAST way to Bali. I pulled out my kobo and Ian fell asleep.

I think the journey across the water took about 2 hours and the shuttle bus about 40 minutes and we arrived in Ubud.

Ubud is in the lower south area of Bali and is touted as a cultural and spiritual centre of Bali; but after our previous experiences with cities, my expectations were low. I am happy to say that they were very wrong. First of all our accommodation was amazing. Since we were coming from a dusty dirty island and salt water showers, I had decided to splurge. I got us a deal (under a 100 dollars a night) on a room in The Mansion Hotel Resort and Spa on the outskirts of Ubud. The entrance way into the main building was impressive.

We were offered cold ginger drinks on arrival and a short tour. The property is huge with several swimming pools, ponds, galleries, and restaurants. Our room, as you can see, is pretty nice.

It has a soft bed, full mosquito netting, TV, chairs, WIFI, sunken tub, etc. and breakfast is included. Mind you, nothing is perfect. The roof is thatched and there are open areas so this means we get bugs and geckos in our room so it’s a good thing we have the netting. The first few days at the resort, we were in heaven, but then it rained. Bugs invaded our room and there were ants everywhere. We had to ask for our room to be sprayed. The damp was overwhelming and things stopped drying and I got sick with a terrible cold. The resort got very busy and they started serving a buffet breakfast which was cold and boring.  The room next door was booked and turns out, you can hear every word through the thin walls. Our neighbours kept us up till the wee hours as they laughed and talked very loudly.

Oh well, for the first few days, it was pretty splendid - and we used the tub a lot so I think we got our money's worth.

We took the free hotel shuttle into Ubud and spent the entire day poking about. The streets are lined with shops selling clothing, purses, paintings, sculptures, scarves, sarongs, and yoga wear.  Homes are inside walled compounds and there are many temples and offerings along the street.

There are also several spas and open air restaurants, some that border rice fields centred in town.  We stopped at one for some refreshments.

I was very excited to find a spa that actually does waxing and I got my eyebrows done.  This is a big deal for me because it’s the first time in Indonesia that I found someone who can wax eyebrows. Our next stop was Monkey Forest Sanctuary a popular tourist destination at the bottom of Monkey Road. Ian paid our entrance fee of 2 dollars each and bought some bananas for the Macaque monkeys that we were going to find inside.

Walking in the forest felt great: lovely tall trees, small rivers and waterfalls, and a nice easy cement path to follow.

Within in a minute of entering the forest, monkeys invaded our personal space and our bananas disappeared quickly. I refused to carry them because of previous experiences with the Macaques and didn’t want to be chased by aggressive monkeys; and aggressive monkeys they were! Ian ended up throwing most of the bananas off to the side because they were not interested in getting one at a time and grabbed at his leg, bag, and hissed if not given a banana fast enough.

There were monkeys everywhere. One man was sitting on the wall getting his photo taken and a baby monkey climbed into this lap. Another monkey climbed on a man’s shoulder to get some bananas while another monkey jumped onto the back of a small boy and scratched him. The little boy’s father hit the monkey (of course!) and the monkey hissed and swiped at the man. Sometimes they can be very cute but having seen their aggressive nature, we are wary.

At one point, I was sitting on the wall and a monkey climbed up and sat down beside me. This wasn’t so bad except that out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large monkey making its way towards us, that’s when I moved. Monkeys fight and they don’t care if you’re sitting there or not,, you don’t want to be caught in the middle.

Another time, we were leaning on a railing looking at the scenery and a monkey climbed over our hands to get to the other side. We stayed perfectly still,  not making any sudden movements.

The forest was beautiful with many statues along our route. At one point, a group of Balinese came through on the way to a ceremony at the temple. In Ubud, there are ceremonies every day.

After our adventure with the monkeys, we made our way back to the street and found a tour that looked interesting and we booked it for Wednesday. We had dinner and made our way back to ‘The Mansion.’

The following day, we decided to go for a walk and headed out onto our road. Walking was fairly easy as there were not a lot of cars or bikes. We passed the Blanco Renaissance Museum and decided to go in. The museum is a compound that features the art of Don Antonio Blanco. Blanco comes from Catalonia Spain but after travelling the world to further his studies, he landed on Bali in 1952 where he remained.

The Museum is set on 2 hectares on a hilltop and houses many of his art pieces. As we approached the gallery, a large hornbill hopped in front of us and it was clear that it had been clipped and couldn’t fly. We rounded the corner and there were several more birds that one of the employees offered to put on our arm. We both said no, but before we knew it, we were covered in birds. It was good fun.

We were not allowed to take any photos of the art work that covered the two floors of the gallery. On the top floor, we exited onto a balcony and climbed a spiral staircase to the top which held some fantastic views of rice fields. On our way out, we could hear some birds and found a row of cages with different varieties of birds. We wandered around a little and discovered one bird that could imitate my whistles.

After our visit to the museum, we continued our walk and ended up in Ubud where we took the shuttle back to our hotel planning on having a swim. On route, the weather turned chilly and it started to rain so we sat in one of the covered pavilions surfing for our next destination. While sitting there, a small cat climbed into Ian’s lap and snuggled in. It was so cute.

Tour

Our driver picked us up at 9am with our first stop being Goa Gajah or the Elephant Cave a short distance from Ubud. The temple site is in a steep valley so you climb down a bunch of stairs to get to the first area. Here, there is a temple pavilion for prayers, enormous bathing pools with fountains, and a small cave opening with a large carving around the mouth of the cave.

Built 700 years ago, the cave was rediscovered in the 1920s and fully excavated 30 years later. Inside the cave, were several niches, but most were empty. Behind the pavilion was a large forest with paths and small pools of water. Ian of course wanted to follow them so off we went. The path wound its way deeper into the forest until it branched off in two: one up and one going down. A man appeared after having followed the one going down and he was very out of breath. I asked him what was down there and he said it was a natural setting and the path was quite steep. That was enough for me – so I sat myself down and Ian followed it down.

The setting was indeed a natural one but Ian said that there some areas where men had carved out spaces into the rock and created small caves. After some time, Ian finally reappeared and I reminded him that we still had many more things to see so we skipping going uphill and retraced our steps back to the road and our driver.

On route our driver explained how the Balinese are very accepting people and that was how Hindu – Buddhist beliefs could exist together in harmony on the island. Hindu religion or Hindu Dharma is held by almost 95% of the population. Hindu Dharma is a blend of Hinduism, Buddhism and ancestor worship. Indian philosophy provides the framework whereas indigenous beliefs are at the core of the rituals.

Temples are simple walled open compounds where one can communicate with God and their ancestors. To show respect at temples, visitors are asked to wear sarongs and sashes and our driver, Wayan provided them for us (first born Balinese are named Wayan whether they are female or male). At temples Balinese women and men all wear sarongs and many of the men wear small cloth ‘hats’ around their head to help control bad thoughts.

Our next stop was Tempak Siring, a holy spring water temple set in a bit of valley with a presidential residence located on a hill overlooking the area. There were many women carrying large baskets of offerings on their heads. The compound housed many pools of water with fountains where men and women could clean or purify themselves.

At the very back of the complex, we came across an entrance to another temple higher in the hills but we were forbidden to enter.

One walled area held ‘holy water’ which looked like volcanic ash (very black) and bubbling water that was perhaps hot springs.

After this we stopped at ‘coffee plantation’ that turned out to be a family run information centre. We walked through a large garden where Wayan pointed out various plants: ginger, jackfruit, passionfruit, small and large pineapple, and various herbs. We also saw our first Luwak.

Luwak is the local name for an Indonesian civet cat. The civet eats the red cherry beans of the coffee plant, along with various insects and plants, but only digests the skin of the bean so that the bean passes through their digestive system mostly in tack. Locals gather these beans, sort, clean and dry them.

It is believed that the enzymes in the civet’s stomach adds flavour to the coffee. The coffee is very expensive. After our tour, we sampled many varieties of coffees and tea including red rice tea, ginger, lemongrass, hot chocolate, etc. We did not have any Luwak coffee. Ian bought us some ginger tea for my cold, and the tea is delicious: 80% ginger with palm sugar, tea, and cinnamon. We sat for a bit looking out on a ravine of various trees and coffee plants.

We then drove to a high point where we could see Mount Batur and Lake Batur. It reminded us of Lake Toba in Sumatra. Mount Batur is an active volcano located in the centre of Bali that last erupted in 1968. Scars from the lava flow were visible and our guide said that most people climbed the volcano at night due to the lack of shade.

We then visited Besakih on the slopes of Mount Agung, the largest and most important temple of the Hindu Dharma. The temple is a complex made of 22 temples sitting on parallel ridges probably dating back to the 14^th century. There are several steps and terraces leading to the main temple complex.

In ’63, Mount Agung erupted killing over 1500 people but the lava flow missed the temple complex by mere metres making this temple even more important to the Balinese.

Following this it was lunchtime and we were taken to a stunning location. The restaurant was located on the top of a hill overlooking rice paddies far below.

Unfortunately, the view was the only good thing about this place. The food was buffet with a very small selection of fried rice, fried noodles, fried chicken and French fries. To make things worse, the food was terrible and it was ice cold. I hardly ate a thing and each meal was over 8 dollars. In retrospect, we should have taken a photo and then asked to go somewhere else.

Our final stop was the old court justice of Kingdom Klungkung on the site of the Klungkung palace which was largely destroyed by the Dutch in the early 1900s. In the complex, there was a large floating pavilion surrounded by water and another pavilion where long ago, three priests would preside. In each of these, the ceilings are covered in paintings depicting various punishments that could be issued.

We were a bit overwhelmed by all the temples but overall the day was enjoyable and Wayan proved a lovely driver.

The rest of our stay in Ubud was spent lazing about, eating some memorable meals, and reading. One day, we visited the Museum Puri Lukisan, the oldest art museum in Bali. The first building we entered had several wood carvings many of which were characters from Balinese folk tales and mythology. The carvings were made from jackfruit, frangipani, teak, waru, cekek, and suar wood. Paintings were oil, tempra, and I believe there was a watercolour. There were also examples of Batik.

Our last day, we participated in a special event with the Writers’ Festival. The international writers’ festival was being held in Ubud the week we were there (coincidence) but many of the events were too expensive for us. However, we did get tickets for a lunch with author and anthropologist, Stephen Lansing. Over a three-course rice-based meal, we would listen to Mr. Lansing discuss the cultivation of rice and the traditional water temple systems in Bali and the event was held at the Dirty Duck, which is a pretty popular restaurant in Ubud.

The setting was indeed pretty spectacular, bordered by rice paddies. We sat with a couple from Australia, Judy and Michael and had a lovely chat with them over our lunch. The ‘talk’ actually proved a bit disappointing to Ian and I as the focus seemed to be more on the lunch rather than on Stephen Lansing. Still, we learned a few new things and it was a great way to spend the afternoon.

I was looking forward to leaving Ubud, just because I needed to get somewhere dry and warm to help me get over this cold!