One short boat trip and looong taxi drive later (road rules don't really exist in Indonesia, and each trip makes you wonder if you really wouldn't just like to walk the 35 miles you need to go), we arrived in Ubud. Ubud is a mountain town in Bali that became super popular after the book and movie "Eat Pray Love". Every shop and tour operator promises the Julia Roberts finding yourself experience, and there are plenty of middle aged and lesbian women running around in yoga pants.
We stayed in a couple of cute little guest houses, which are really more like family compounds with extra rooms.
They are all right on the main street, which itself is noisy, dirty, and busy, but once you step just inside the gate, its like a peaceful family farm, with chickens and cats running around, and the family temple in the center kept spotless with flower offerings every morning and afternoon.
Unfortunately, neither Jared or I were feeling 100 percent after the motorbike accident, so while we had planned some very ambitious hikes around the rice paddies, we actually stuck mostly to the city, where a cheap warong (restaurant) and beer were never far away. We did manage to make it to the Monkey Forest, a national park filled with temples that a greedy little band of Macaque monkeys has taken over. While the temples were certainly beautiful,
the monkeys stole the show. A woman sat outside the park selling bananas (even though the sign right next to her said it was illegal to feed the monkeys), and the smart monkeys would hang out just beyond the entrance and rob all the tourists of their bananas. Glad we had decided to forego the bananas, we watched a french woman hold her last banana high above her head and yell "Not yet! Not yet!" as a monkey scaled her head and grabbed the banana. Yep, definitely right now. Even being bananaless, I still got climbed. I think they thought the yellow straps might have been banana flavored, but when they found out they weren't they tried to unzip everything to see if we were withholding anything. They're cute, but you definitely don't want to get bitten (rabies is pretty prevelent in Indonesia, and we hadn't got shots), so I shook them off as they started fighting over me.
Back on the streets, we learned to hone our haggling skills after we both got scammed out of about 15 bucks each (me for a sarong, Jared for chocolate!) You'd think we'd be better at this by now (after we got scammed in Perth, anything expensive we would parrot "SCAM!!" back and forth to each other), but it really takes a while to get back into it and realize you're not being rude when you offer them back less than half of what they just quoted you. The first sale of the day is considered lucky, so you're more likely to get a good deal then. Jared walked away with a $4 pair of "raybans" that are falling apart about now.
On our last morning, we took a silver class together. You can buy some really cheap silver in this part of Bali, so it's a popular thing to do. I learned a lot, mostly that I should never be a jewelry maker, but we walked out with some souvenirs and a cool experience. I made a necklace that kind of looks like a 5 year old made it, and Jared, being the perfectionist that he is, made me a beautiful ring I've been wearing ever since.
If we would have had more time, or had been feeling less injured, I would have loved to have stayed in an Ashram (temple like accommodation) and done yoga all day, toured the rice paddies, and tried some civet cat coffee at one of the plantations, but we just weren't feeling up to it. It was nearing the end of Ramadan and the city was PACKED with Muslims coming over from Java for their holidays, so not a bad time to be moving on. Thanks for a good time, Bali. Terima kasih! (Thank you sounds like "Tear out my car seats" if you say it fast, haha) Next stop, Singapore!
We stayed in a couple of cute little guest houses, which are really more like family compounds with extra rooms.
Unfortunately, neither Jared or I were feeling 100 percent after the motorbike accident, so while we had planned some very ambitious hikes around the rice paddies, we actually stuck mostly to the city, where a cheap warong (restaurant) and beer were never far away. We did manage to make it to the Monkey Forest, a national park filled with temples that a greedy little band of Macaque monkeys has taken over. While the temples were certainly beautiful,
 | |
| Monkey attack |
Back on the streets, we learned to hone our haggling skills after we both got scammed out of about 15 bucks each (me for a sarong, Jared for chocolate!) You'd think we'd be better at this by now (after we got scammed in Perth, anything expensive we would parrot "SCAM!!" back and forth to each other), but it really takes a while to get back into it and realize you're not being rude when you offer them back less than half of what they just quoted you. The first sale of the day is considered lucky, so you're more likely to get a good deal then. Jared walked away with a $4 pair of "raybans" that are falling apart about now.On our last morning, we took a silver class together. You can buy some really cheap silver in this part of Bali, so it's a popular thing to do. I learned a lot, mostly that I should never be a jewelry maker, but we walked out with some souvenirs and a cool experience. I made a necklace that kind of looks like a 5 year old made it, and Jared, being the perfectionist that he is, made me a beautiful ring I've been wearing ever since.
If we would have had more time, or had been feeling less injured, I would have loved to have stayed in an Ashram (temple like accommodation) and done yoga all day, toured the rice paddies, and tried some civet cat coffee at one of the plantations, but we just weren't feeling up to it. It was nearing the end of Ramadan and the city was PACKED with Muslims coming over from Java for their holidays, so not a bad time to be moving on. Thanks for a good time, Bali. Terima kasih! (Thank you sounds like "Tear out my car seats" if you say it fast, haha) Next stop, Singapore!
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