Not Ubud place to be…
Day 4 – Ubud, self-cleansing etc.
I’ll skip the whole “we drove to our airbnb from the airport” paragraph other than to say: Oding, our airbnb host in Ubud had a hilarious ‘Mr./Ms. Rowan’ sign that he bounced around above his head as he led us to the car. He was full of smiles and laughs!
We made it to Ubud! Oding’s place is pretty banging and waking up from a REALLY deep sleep in our first proper bed in a few days to open the curtains of our room to an amazing garden in bright sunlight, with paddy fields across the small cravasse thing beyond our wall was a great way to start the day… for me at least. Things weren’t looking great for Billie as she complained of a pounding headache and a sick belly, so she got back into bed to sleep it off. I decided to go in search of coffee for us, and ended up on a bit of a 30 minute walk to the nearest spot that would sell me some; because we weren’t staying IN Ubud as such, but about 15 mins north of it, vaguely around Tegellalang (famous for its picturesque paddy fields – more on that below). So the roads I walked on were mostly comprised of locals outside their homes (many of which were sort of of temple like buildings and rather beautiful).
I returned with strong black coffee, which in hindsight probably wasn’t best for old Bill’s belly so I drank them both and felt a bit nauseous myself. After 30 mins or so of googling heat stroke and worrying, Billie arose and said she felt better (I diagnosed her as being a former heat exhaustion sufferer). We got on our way…
Tegallalang Rice Paddies are Bali’s most famous and, as was evident, Instagram’s. Now, Billie is a former Instagram addict (I exaggerate) and I’ve got an account which I Bali use (see what I did there?) but we found the Instagram fever that appeared to be affecting everyone too much to bear. It seems the traveller stereotype is changing from hippie to influencer before our very eyes – there should be a petition to stop this, somehow. The amount of women who wore red dressed to the rice paddies because they clearly stand out well in other Instagram pictures was a bit much. Check Instagram for tegallalang rice fields and see the red dresses if you don’t believe me… So we’ve established Instagrammers like Tegallalang, but unfortunately Tegallalang also like Instagrammers and there were all sorts of ‘nests’ you could sit in for pictures and about a million swings and ‘love’ signs. It was all very yucky. Luckily, the views were great and we were determined to enjoy our visit there and did, wandering around and even having a go on the best swing there and snapping away with the rest of them. See our ‘gram pics below.
We scooted away from Tegallalang towards culture, namely Tirta Empul Temple. A temple we enjoyed so much we decided not to visit any other temples after ‘cos we’d essentially peaked on our temple viewing and we knew it. Tirta Empul is a Hindu water temple. It has water coming out of spouts in a pool where you ‘self-cleanse’. We went to the changing rooms, got our special wet sarongs, chucked our stuff in the locker and went to cleanse. There are about 20 spouts to wash yourself in, and you start from the left, have a pray/cleanse, wash your face in the spout (v refreshing) then move onto the right. All good fun and cooling and we had a good go at the praying stuff. I asked Billie what she was cleansing and bless her she was just praying for the dwindling orangutan population – not exactly a self cleanse but I think she got a bit more selfish after that, and I gave the orangutans a bit of pray time too.
After Tirta Empul we had gorrrgeous late lunch of nasi goreng (fried rice) and mie goreng (fried noodles) at ‘Bali Bistro’ which was basically a woman’s back garden/temple and was delicious.
From there we scooted home to change and shower for some Ubud town exploring (I’ll get to Ubud town later) then dinner – it was a fairly short day what with the mornings troubles, but we felt we accomplished good things – especially proud of our cultural conquests.
Day 5 – Monkey magic
We awoke from a deep slumber to Cheetah (wearing a t-shirt with a cheetah on it), Oding’s smiley daughter, bringing us our breakfast of (you guessed it) nasi goreng and mie goreng, but with a bit of fruit so you can pretend it’s breakfast. Not that I need to pretend: lunch for breakfast is a dream come true for me.
First stop: Campuhan Ridge Walk. This short walk takes about an hour and a half and starts pretty much right in the middle of Ubud but instantly you’re out in beautiful countryside, on the top of a large ridge with a path on top with views either side, starting with jungle, eventually leading to a pretty village surrounded by paddies. This was, in hindsight, my favourite activity of the Ubud part of our journey – it was just fresh and beautiful and perfect.
We stopped at a delightful little ‘warung’ (restaurant) for a bintang – the local beer, pretty good! – before heading back to the start of the walk.
From there we grabbed our scooter and headed to Ubud Market. I suppose this is a good time to talk about Ubud town! The whole place essentially exists for tourism, Billie perceptively observed that there wasn’t a single shop or amenity within a couple of square miles that existed to serve the locals – everything was either a restaurant, a shop, an art gallery or a spa and the gentrification levels were off the chart, everything was super tasteful and ‘branded’. It was just mad, and the place was constantly rammed, and the afternoon traffic was hell on earth and a very new scooter experience for me which, if I say so myself, I mastered within moments. Ubud Market was sadly an extension of this tourism cash grab and pretty much every stall sold the same shirts, ukeleles, wooden bowls etc. I thought if one stall set-up with a decent display of unique items, tourists would probably be lining up, but hey… what do I know. We bought a few little souvenirs and Billie got a great little top.
From there we moved swiftly onto the dreaded Monkey Forest Sanctuary. Dreaded because the monkeys are reportedly very cheeky and all the reviews say that a monkey stole their sunglasses or went in their bag and took their wallet. Billie’s favourite review was of a lady who took her baby in in a pram. Within minutes the monkeys were all over it, and she had to fight them to get her baby out – minutes later they’d emptied the pram of all its contents, however the reviewer still gave it a solid 3/5 rating…?
We were told to strip ourselves of anything we didn’t want taken and our day had fallen so that we were carrying all our valuables AND stuff we’d just bought from the market, so we steeled ourselves and went for it. This day, at least, the monkeys were pretty chill, at least with us, though they fought each other a lot! I obviously had the camera to get a load of snaps…
After the monkeys we had a 5.30 appointment at the spa – a massage and a facial each – 2.5 hours of bliss! My face has never been so soft. The neck bit played havoc with my recurring neck injury over dinner, but I had recovered by the next day – phew!
Day 6 – We go chasing waterfalls
We slept in majorly this morning, up at about 10am with a good 11 hours sleep under our belts – it’s exhausting stuff, travelling. We’d done Ubud town, we’d done monkeys and we’d done a temple, so we decided to try a waterfall. A solid 45 min scoot away, we set off.
About 5 mins before we reached our destination, we saw a sign for a waterfall, so assumed we’d reached the spot and Google maps just had it wrong. It didn’t, and we were at another, smaller waterfall called Pengibul Waterfall with a teeny little pool but it was just us. It was a blissfully cool pool to swim in and the waterfall itself was nice and cute.
We then got on our way to the real deal, Tibumana waterfall, which was, to be fair, a great deal more impressive than the last. The waterfall was perfectly straight, tall and fell into a huge pool with a cave behind it in a hidden away part of the rainforest – pretty much all you can ask of a waterfall, really… This was busier with the influencers out in force getting their beauty snaps. We had a lush swim and chilled for a bit, admiring the scene.
We enjoyed the previous day’s walk so much we elected to scoot back to Ubud so we could hit up the number 2 walk, the Kajeng Rice Fields walk. We got caught in the deadly traffic and it nearly defeated us, but eventually we broke free and just a couple of minutes from the main road we were back in paradise land, surrounded by paddy fields as the sun was setting, right on cue. We wandered down the path and stopped at the amazing Sweet Orange Warung for a ‘sunset smoothie’ and a snack – lush views and vibes!
We finished the walk and found ourselves back in busy Ubud. We thought it best to scoot home, hang up our wet towels and swimsuits so they’d be dry for our onward travel the following day and shower before dinner. Dinner was at a joint in Central Ubud but it was tasty and I had wine for the first time in a week (I know, my life is so hard). We stumbled into bed and set an alarm for 7am, as we’d be up and down to Sanur beach in the morning, for a fast boat to Nusa Penida, our next stop… One of our very favourite things about our time in Ubud was just scooting around the lush greenery. Within 5 mins you’d be in a different town, with rice paddies or jungle on either side. The roads were windy and hilly so it was an adventure just heading 20 mins down the road. There was one point where we had to navigate a really thin bridge with loads of scooters behind, exasperated by my slowness, and others in front giving way. Nerve wracking but fun! On the way back I opted to do what some other bikers were doing and ignore the bridge completely and just bike across the shallow river it was bridging – v adventurous I’m sure you’ll agree. Nusa Penida promises further adventures with its less developed infrastructure and cliffs, beaches and snorkeling galore. Underwater pictures coming soon to a blog near you.
