Sunday, October 26, 2013
To get to our next destination we organized a private pick-up with our next hotel. By far the easiest way to get around Bali: car and a driver: affordable and comfortable.
So at 10am our driver picked us up and we drove about 1 hour and 20 mins to Ubud. Well, the little village of Nyuhkuning, just south of Ubud. This is where our amazing hotel Alam Indah is located. Our friend Louisa reccommended the place (and it turns out that our friend Paul back home in SF has also stayed here) and after only the first of our 3 night here, we would already recommend the place ourselves!
We are only about a 30 minute walk from the center of Ubud, and the walk is all but boring. First you walk through the Monkey Forest, or if you wish to avoid this, around it on the motorcycle path. The trick to not get the monkeys to jump on you is to walk through the place without any food on you. There are enough other tourists with food to distract the monkeys. The macaques are very cute but I prefer to observe them from at least 1meter away 🙂
After the forest you walk along Monkey Forest Road, naturally, which is lined with cafes, restaurants and shops, till you Ubud Central. Not that you actually notice a dividing line. We stopped for lunch at a warung (usually a smaller, family owned eatery, ranging from food stalls to modern looking cafe-style restaurants) and walked back on a much quieter side road.
In the evening we attended a Balinese Dance performance in a spectacular open air venue and of course this is exactly when we experienced our first Balinese downpour. Luckily there was a covered back-up hall to finish the performance. Good to see one of these but we think one is enough.
It was still pouring when the show finished and everyone wanted a taxi, so these were far and few between. Stephen didn’t waste any time, rushed over to the adjoining Café Lotus and managed to secure us what looked like the last table available. Because by then most others leaving the show had figured out that with all taxis busy it could be a wet walk to dinner anywhere else.
By the way, any restaurant, cafe, … will call your hotel for you to arrange a complimentary pick-up back to the hotel. Very civilized.
Monday, October 27, 2013
We arranged a complimentary hotel car (yep, very civilized again) to drop us off at Cafe Wayan for a late-ish ‘sweet’ lunch – one can’t eat nasi goreng all the time :). Aterwards Stephen went for a walk a bit further out, while Caroline wandered around Ubud.
We met back at our hotel for late, complimentary, afternoon tea.
That evening we found another Belgian Restaurant Café des Artistes, and, since we were both craving steak (one can’t always eat nasi goreng – which we love by the way) that’s where we went.
Tuesday, October 28, 2013
We’d arranged a 4 hour tour to go see some of the sites further afield from Ubud. Our driver picked us up at 8am which meant we could start in the relative ‘cool’ of the morning (a mere 26C/79F). We visited Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave), Gunung Kawi (temple/monument), Tirta Empul (Holy Spring), a coffee plantation that harvests among others luwak coffee, and lookout over a rice terrace.
Once back at Alam Indah we relaxed the rest of the day and went for an evening walk and dinner later.
