Last 3 days in Indonesia- Ubud

We were greeted immediately off of the ferry from Nusa Lembongan with the chaos of Bali. From what we have experienced so far if Google Maps says something will take an hour, it will probably take you two. We traveled up to Ubud which is a town in the central/northern part of Bali. We made it to our hotel and let's just say the pictures did not match reality… it was sad because it felt like a hotel that probably thrived before Covid but now looks more or less abandoned. We typically don’t care too much about where we stay but we were booked here for 3 nights and pretty far from the town. We made a game-time decision to leave and rebook at a hotel we felt comfortable in and after a swift exit and a taxi ride to our new hotel, we knew we made the right call. The new place overlooked beautiful rice fields, the staff was very accommodating, and we were now within walking distance of the city center. We got situated then walked into town to eat Babi Goling, or suckling pig, at the recommendation of our taxi driver. It was delicious even though we had no idea what we were eating…. Probably for the best. Another great perk of the hotel was a hardy breakfast every morning that was included with the room. We settled into a nice routine of waking up and having coffee on the porch, then heading down to have breakfast on a covered patio, then leaving for the day to explore the city. It was so lovely!

(view from our balcony!!)

The first full day was packed with activity and walking. We headed over to the monkey forest to see Monkeys and temples. Luckily these monkeys were more tamed than the ones at the Uluwatu Temple and while they were semi-interested in the people walking around, they rarely interacted. We think it’s because they were well fed. We walked all around and got to see a couple of babies in the mix.

Headed to get some food and then walked to the Campuhan Ridge Walk. The walk was about 3 miles round trip up to a little village with rice fields and jungle on either side. Luckily for us, it was a cloudy day which kept the heat at bay for us to walk so much. Walked back into town and did some bartering for a couple of trinkets. We liked walking around and seeing what the local markets had to offer and Will liked to do the negotiating. We headed back to our hotel and then after swimming, we went back out for some dinner. The next day we dedicated ourselves to seeing temples. There were a few big ones and two that were royal palaces. We walked to the main one called Ubud Palace. What was open to the public was pretty small but so beautiful. It had a lot more intricacies to it than the Uluwatu temple. The next one we went to, Saraswati Temple, we couldn’t even walk through but we could walk on the outside of it. We had to put on the traditional dress, including a sarong and a top, and a headband. The temple was very similar- orange accents and was called a water temple.

We went into another open air market to see what other items we might want to pick up and then walked down a non touristy road (funny how different one street over can be) and walked to our third temple of the day. We had read this one is a nice one to visit but there was no one around. It had some interesting sculptures inside and after exploring we grabbed lunch and then went to our hotel pool.

Another plus of our hotel is offering afternoon tea and Balinese cake. They brought it up to our room and we enjoyed the treat and view. Walked out to get dinner and had a yummy dinner with live music for our last night in Ubud. We woke up this morning to enjoy the last yummy breakfast and then packed up and checked out. Again, an hour's drive turned into two to our hotel by the airport. The driver was so nice and gave us more insight into the culture as we drove through different neighborhoods. We made it to our hotel and then walked around the neighborhood to grab food. We had a lovely 5AM wake up call for an early morning flight out to Singapore and we left Indonesia. Lot's of observations/thoughts after visiting my first Asian country, but really just grateful we were able to interact with such nice people over the course of our 10 days.