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After a 7am start, we arrived in Ubud at about 8pm in the dark and the minibus driver did the usual trick of dropping us off at his friends hotel a, 10 minute walk from the centre of town. The place was pretty pricey so we decided to try our luck elsewhere and not two minutes later, a family drove past on a motor bike and the guy offered us a cheap room at his hotel. We decided to check it out and were amazed by the place. We were expecting some dingy losman but it was a full on hotel with gardens, big rooms and even hot water hence proving that when in a foreign country and you find yourself in the dark in an unfamiliar town, you should simply follow the first stranger who comes along :-)
Ubud paints itself as the cultural centre of Bali. Although its far from authentic and is put on for the tourists and their fat wallets, it is still a very nice place with beautiful architecture and carvings along with surrounding countryside. In fact, the only complaint about the place is the fact that while walking from A to B, a dozen
locals (not an exaggeration) will shout 'Transport!' at every tourist to try and get a taxi fare. They just sit around the streets all day yelling 'transport' at people and it really gets annoying after a while.
Bright and early the next morning, we started our visit with a trip to the monkey forest sanctuary in a lush tropical valley. It is of course filled with feisty monkeys shagging and eyeing the remaining elastic on my shoes (one of my shoes was part eaten by a monkey in Nepal and I swear they're all out to finish the job) but its also filled with temples and beautiful Balinese carvings and you really feel like you are in an Indiana Jones movie while wandering through the vallies.
The local speciality is spit roast suckling pig marinated in Balinese spices, so we went for lunch and ended up buying seconds as it was so tasty. We then headed out into the countryside for a walk and to escape the taxi drivers. It was nice and peaceful strolling through the paddy fields until we came across a couple walking in the other direction who were being harassed by a coconut seller.
He'd apparently lopped the top off a couple of coconuts and was trying to make the couple buy them. They were obviously relatively new to such hassles so tried to discus it rationally with the guy instead of just walking away (doubly stupid as the talk was getting heated and the guy had a big knife :-) ).
On our second day there we had a look at the palace and some of the surrounding streets which were all really beautiful. Unfortunately our time in Indonesia was coming to an end and we had to head back to Kuta. We booked a minibus and were surprised (and amazed) to be the only ones on board since every other one we've been on has been full and often oversubscribed.
Back in Kuta we found a cheap room as we were leaving at about 4am to get to the airport. It was really basic but was unique in that there was a tiny pink chicken running around the small court yard who took a liking to Stacey and kept on trying to jump on the chair and sit on her lap. Apparently the owners had dyed it pink for Nypie
Day and it was really weird. We hunted around for a souvenir of Bali in the town and also some cheap jeans for use in New Zealand. Having not worn jeans for over 7 months, it was a real treat to do so.
Up early, we'd prebooked transport to the airport so stumbled into the back of a van and were soon there and checked it for our flight at 6:55am. We didn't actually choose to fly at this time but the airline changed the time of the flight about a month before hand: thanks Air Asia! At least it was really cheap. There was a guy in the check in queue next to us who was try to check in but hadn't come a day to late. His flight was on the 11th and it was the 12th but he didn't realise that the date changes at midnight so the check in girl had the unfortunate task of explaining it to him while trying to keep a straight face.
The flight was smooth and we were soon back to familiar territory in Singapore where we had a few days to kill before our flight to New Zealand.
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Eric
non-member comment
I enjoyed your Indonesia post. It reminded me of my time there. My blog is looking for travel photos. If you have the time, email us some at dirtyhippiesblog@gmail.com or check us out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your travels, Eric