Adventures in Asia: Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

I left Edmonton on Saturday and flew, via Vancouver, Tokyo and Singapore, to Bali, Indonesia, arriving yesterday. Saturday turned into Sunday whilst over the Pacific from Vancouver-Tokyo, and Sunday to Monday whilst over the South China Sea. I got some sleep in Singapore before catching an Air Asia flight to Bali. 

I had arranged a driver to take me from the airport to Ubud--a distance of only 35 kilometres, but it took almost two hours thanks to Bali's terrible traffic! I reached my hotel, Puri Saraswati Dijiwa, around 17:45. My room is nothing to write home about, but the grounds of the hotel are spectacular. 

My room is the left side of this bungalow.

And this is my view from the porch.

The hotel is adjacent to the grounds of the Saraswati temple. . .

. . . which includes this lovely lotus pond.

I was very hungry, but I wanted to make the most of the daylight that remained, so I started walking. The main streets of Ubud are no fun to walk on--too noisy, too much traffic, poor quality, crowded sidewalks (or none at all), and so on. But, just a couple hundred metres behind my hotel you escape the town and find yourself on a trail between rice fields.

Sunset is just after 18:00, so I was not able to get far before dark, but I got a sense for why Ubud is such a popular place. After dinner I decided to take in a dance show at the Ubud palace. This is definitely a tourist show, and I always find it hard to know what to think of these types of things--are they essential and positive ways of keeping traditions alive and vibrant, or simply another way to fleece tourists of a few dollars for a product of minimal cultural and artistic value? If nothing else, they are something to do after dark.

You can get a sense for the music style in this video:

And some of the dancing in this one:

There were a handful of dances, plus a couple of instrumental pieces and the show lasted a bit over an hour. 

This morning, jet lag had me up quite early, but sunrise is early here, too, so I was out the door at 6:00. There are lots of little rivers that have carved fairly deep gorges in the landscape, and my destination was across one of these gorges and up on the Campuhan ridge. It was nice to be out so early--not only was it relatively cool and quiet, but I was able to see ladies setting out offerings and lighting incense to start their day. Bali is famously Indonesia's only Hindu majority province. This is a street-side shrine, and you will see offerings are left around it.

But I think more interesting are the little "kits" the ladies (seems to always be ladies) put out in front of their homes and shops.

I saw ladies in the market selling the supplies for these--flower petals, herbs of some sort, etc. The white or green "stick" is the incense, and it smells lovely and so the air was quite fragrant in places. 

Here is the road down into the gorge--pretty spectacular, albeit not the safest spot to walk once traffic picked up.

I left the road shortly after that spot, and here the walking got more peaceful and relaxed. 

Once at the bottom of the gorge you climb back up the other side and onto the ridge into the open.

The ridge trail ends after awhile and you are in a village with more rice paddies.

I also ran into a spot where some people were setting up for a religious celebration of some sort, I gather.

In the picture above you can see the lady is carrying a stack on her head. These are trays like the ones below; I assume these are offerings of a more significant sort.

Speaking of religious practices, you can see on this car below that it is wearing something off its grill. This seems to be weaved plant leaves and many of the cars and motorbikes wear this. My airport transport driver told me this is a Balinese tradition. Since he is from Java, he does not have it on his car, so he said you can tell who the Balinese drivers are versus those from other islands or countries. 

Since I am talking about taxis, the sign below was also interesting to me. These are several places around Ubud. 

Anyway, back to my walk... 

I was working up an appetite so was excited to stop for breakfast at a restaurant with an elevated (and shaded) dining area with a lovely view. 

After breakfast I walked back to my hotel--I wanted to get some laundry done so I had to pick it up from my room. I was pointed into this courtyard to find the laundry lady. My understanding is this is fairly typical Balinese residential situation, with several homes opening out to a central courtyard like this. I don't know if those living here would all be related or not, but that is somewhat my assumption. In this case, laundry lady was not the only one running a business out of her home, because there was a little spa (massage, nails, etc.) next door.

With laundry arranged, I continued on the trail I had started down last night. Other than a couple of farmers, I mostly had this trail to myself. There are some guesthouses along here, and motorbikes can get by on the trail, but it is very, very quiet compared to the chaos of Ubud's main streets.

Oh, at one spot I also had to make way for some ducks.

Mostly rice is what is being grown, but the farmers also produce coconuts. 

I am not sure what these shells are being dried for.

Here are some more pictures from my walk in the morning, and then later in the afternoon when I came back--I could not stay away!

A lovely little place called Sweet Orange has a guesthouse and restaurant in between rice fields, so it was a perfect spot for second breakfast.

As mid-morning turned to early afternoon, I found it too hot to do much vigorous walking. I mailed a postcard, poked around the town itself a little, and ate lunch. After my encounter with the ducks, I decided to eat duck--in the photo below the duck itself is still folded into the banana leaves.

 

The rain started in the afternoon, and was quite something for an hour or so. I took the opportunity to jump in the hotel's pool. When the rain stopped, it was much cooler, so I went back to the rice paddy trail. This time I noticed this little temple. I did not want to get too snoopy/disrespectful because I am not sure of the protocols, but I did take a few pictures.

I ate dinner (mie goreng and Bintang beer) at a little outdoor restaurant with some live music and plentiful mosquitos (note the bottle of bug spray they provide at each table!).