We have just ended our week in Ubud, a town in the uplands of Bali, located in the midst of rice paddies and deep ravines. It’s known for being an art and culture centre and I believe was originally a quiet and laid back place to visit, but now is quite a busy tourist mecca. We’ve had a fun week soaking in the sites and the beautiful countryside while learning lots more about the Indonesian culture. The tourist scene is very separated from the local scene, which feels a little contrived, but interesting none-the-less and means it’s well set-up for easy travelling and great restaurants.

We got into a good rhythm this week where we would spend the morning doing an activity and/or something touristy while it was a bit cooler, then we’d relax in the villa for the afternoon giving us a chance to catch up on things like trip planning, taxes and some school-like work for the kids. Each evening we’d head out to a different recommended restaurant around the area in a “Grab” (SEAsia’s version of Uber). It was nice to have a routine, and although it often won’t be feasible, it’s something we’ll try to do whenever we can on this trip. So here are a few of our favourite activities

Around town in Ubud

What was especially great about Ubud was that there were so many things to see and do within a small area. The markets were a hit and we visited a couple of times to grab some Indonesian souvenirs. We are all wishing that we had more room in our cases to bring fun things home! We all tried haggling with some success, but with overall prices so low, we didn’t mind spending a bit more than we probably could have bargained to.

The central Ubud area is anchored around the palace and three beautiful temples. It turns out every town has 3 public temples on top of each house having its own temple, so there are many awe-inspiring sites to see. We made quick stops at the palace and a couple of the temples, but I think by now we’ve all had our fill of religious monuments for a while, so visits are getting quicker as the weeks go along. Given Ubud is known for artists, we did a stop at the Puri Lukisan art museum which was a super interesting showcase of Balinese artists over time – Balinese art is very unique versus other art styles we’ve seen.

In our quest to stay active, we tried out yoga classes at the famous Yoga Barn which was chock-full of westerners in lululemon. It seemed out of place in the middle of Indonesia but was right inline with the tourist vibe here. The classes were set at a beautiful and green open-air studio as part of a yoga retreat-like complex, and were really enjoyable although reminded us how little stretching we’ve been doing recently. We also broke out the soccer ball in a field right in the centre of town on Saturday morning. Unfortunately we didn’t know that the local kids would be in school on Saturday because we hoped some would join us, but it turned out that the field was across the street from a school and we had a huge cheering section during their recess which was pretty funny.

Visiting the countryside

Outside of Ubud there was plenty to see as well. On our drive from the north-west of Bali we stopped at an active tea plantation and were put to work making tea. It also included an intensive tea-sampling session pumping all of us non-caffeine consumers full of multiple rounds of strong tea (even the kids – good practice for university I guess!?). We spent one morning doing an Indonesian cooking class at a house in the countryside. I have dreams of our kids cooking wonderful meals for us when we get home… I may have to dream longer, but it was lots of fun and resulted in a huge feast. Flipping green pancakes was certainly a hit for all – that’s a life skill I’m glad the kids learned.

One of our favourite things from the week was a (downhill!) bike tour through the backroads near Ubud and it was a gorgeous tour of small villages and rice fields. I had a few minor heart attacks from passing vehicles, but overall it was a really great change of pace from our many car trips. We had a some interesting stops along the way including a family making trigona-bee honey from stingless bees (so tasty!) at their house, a coffee plantation where civet coffee is made (that’s the coffee that is first eaten and poo-ed out by small furry animals, before being processed – I am not kidding – read more here!), and at a sacred 500-year old banyan tree. It was fun to learn about banyan trees that we often saw at temples – they are carefully maintained by the community and each trimming is accompanied by a ceremonial offering to the gods.

Monkeys, butterflies and more

It wouldn’t be a trip to Bali if we didn’t see monkeys! We opted to miss the famous Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud where the monkeys have gotten aggressive with tourists and instead went to a quieter temple outside of Ubud where hundreds of relatively calm monkeys hang out. The monkeys were particularly attracted to Steve and jumped on him multiple times, we think because his shirt was the same colour as those the monkey-handlers were wearing. So much for the stern warnings from our Toronto travel doctor to not let any monkeys near us!

We also went to a butterfly sanctuary with the biggest butterflies we have ever seen. They also had a Bali Starling bird on display, a species close to extinction. Although I didn’t love seeing it in a small cage, we feel lucky to have gotten to see one – we had heard lots about these birds as the Bali Barat National Park, that we visited the previous week, was created to protect these birds from extinction.

Bali’s traditional Kecak dance

The last thing I’ll post about Bali is the traditional Bali Kecak dance performance we watched at the Pura Dalem temple in Ubud. Always set in the open air (even through rain showers as we experienced), Kacek is a musical drama accompanied by the chanting of a chorus of men representing an army of monkeys continuously intoning “Cak! Cak! Cak!” or “Keh-Chak” in polyrhythmic sounds during almost the entire performance (FYI, I borrowed part of that description from Wikipedia). It was a beautiful performance with completely mesmerizing sounds. It was hard to capture the atmosphere by video/photo, but I’ve included a short video that you should watch with volume to get a sense.

Coming up next

We’ve just landed in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam which is a big change. More on that in my next blog post!