Shopping Trip To Ubud

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Shopping Trip to Ubud

All great journeys are paved with good intentions. US$40 to hire a driver for 8 hours includes car and petrol - cheap! The plan was to drive to Ubud and spend the day there shopping, checking out galleries, restaurants and maybe some cultural shows.

Dancing

First stop, major touristy Begong and Keris dance centre about 10km from our villa and about 20km short of Ubud. At first when the driver pulled over, there were lots of official looking people waving traffic to park on the wrong side of the road…what’s going on here? All the people are getting out of their cars/vans? Is this like a military checkpoint or something? I’m not carrying any ID with me - I read somewhere that you should carry your passports and visas with you, but I hate to do that.

Anyway, I ask the driver and he simply says “dance” and I get it and I was hoping to catch something up in Ubud where we wanted to go in the first place. But this place is OK, they are very professional and although my backside was aching towards the end I enjoyed the show. The music was a fusion of Pink Floyd’s “Time” meets “A Clockwork Orange”.

Silver

Back on the road again and the driver asks “where to now?” - and I repeat…”Ubud!” and Jane says that she would like to buy some silver jewelry. A few minutes later we pull over to the side of the road into a silversmith’s shop approximately 15km short of Ubud. I’m praying for aircon, but there is none to be found, however the shop is at least 2 or 3 degrees cooler than outside. They didn’t have a massive collection of silver, but it was interesting - lots of the usual stuff and some specialist pieces too. Jane bought a chain, pendant and pair of earrings (we later found a similar style chain in a major mall down in Kuta for 3 times the price we paid here!!!). The silversmith looked a lot like Mr Myagi out of the Karate Kid movie…wax on…wax off. He was happy for me to take a photo of him working away on a new ring.

On the way out of the silversmith, we met our first trinket hawkers. They push their wares in front of you and start chanting prices. They don’t stop until either you get in your transport and drive away or they spot someone else to sell to. They’re like mosquitoes, annoying at first but you get used to them. Where to next? Ubud!!!

Ubud Monkeys

This time we made it! But we went straight into the Monkey Forest Walk. The walk is not so much of a walk but quick stroll with a lot of snatch and grab. Our driver recommended that we not wear our sunglasses and picked us up a bunch of small bananas to feed the fiends. It cost about 3000RP each for our entry and 1000RP for the bananas - I read in the Lonely Planet that there was an alternate walk that doesn’t cost you anything but for the sake of A$1.50 who really cares? Bali really needs the tourist dollar at the moment.

So we fed the bastar…er…monkeys their undeserved bananas, took some nice photos, had a peek at some of the temples in the area and then headed back to the van to go get some lunch as we were getting peckish after feeding monkeys...we needed lunch. I’d had a recommendation that we go to Casa Luna…but the driver recommended a place “only 10km away, beautiful view of Mt Batur” he insisted.

So we bid farewell to Ubud and headed into the hills. I had the GPS going and was tracking were we were off to. After a while we past the 10km mark and there was nothing in sight…15km…nothing…20km…”Are we there yet???”…I was starting to get pissed off. The shopping trip to Ubud had completely been thwarted as it was approaching 1pm and we hadn’t had lunch yet (which would take at least 45mins the way we dine) and we would also have to make it all the way back to Seminyak by around 4:30pm…by my calculations we were pretty much going to have to eat our lunch and drive straight home - no shopping. Then, we had to stop and pay some money for some reason - didn’t realize we were at the volcano!

Kintamani
Next thing we know, we’re driving along a ridge, to our left - a view back down the mountain all the way to Kuta and to our right the Mt Batur volcano with the double crater. It took my breath away! I had no idea it was going to be anything like this! Magnificent views! Thoughts quickly returned to my empty stomach and I was praying that wherever we stop…please be airconditioned! However, I hadn’t checked my GPS - we were now at 1,330m altitude and it was notably cooler and the breeze was very refreshing. As soon as we stepped out of the van we were hit by a procession of hawkers trying to sell us pencils, t-shirts, postcards, carvings, collapsible bowls…it just kept coming!

We managed to get through and into the restaurant - not aircon, but the windows overhanging the crater afforded us nice breezes and a long drop straight down onto a very desolate landscape. There were large blobs of green bulging out of the side of the volcano but everything else was charred black. Apparently a few years ago they were alive with rivers of lava - that would have been very impressive to see! There is also a big lake in the shape of a crescent that arcs around the right side of the central cone of the volcano within the crater.

After lunch, I knew the hawkers would be waiting for us, so I tried a sneaky tactic - I waited until a group of people headed up the stairs to the carpark and trailed them up hoping that the hawkers would place all their attentions on the lead group of people and I could use them as a shield and sneak through. It nearly worked…there were just too many hawkers! But the lead group made the mistake of showing some interest in the goods and they were swamped almost instantly. I made good my escape across the street - but where was our driver? I think I found the van, but we wandered aimlessly along the road trying to find Gede (Gidday)…eventually he showed up (he must have been enjoying his own lunch) but not soon enough, the hawkers had spotted us and a procession of them headed our way. We managed to jump in the van and head back down the mountain without further hassle.

Ubud...again

We did make a quick stop in Ubud on the way back through. The driver made it sound like it was out of the way to go there - as if we were taking a different way back…but I could see from the GPS tracking that we were on the same road heading down as up and that we hadn’t passed it yet and that it was just off to the right 2km on…so I insisted we stop in. We went back to where we were earlier near the monkey forest, Jane got the driver to stop there…I wanted him to go around the corner to where most of the interesting shops were…she never listens. Anyway, we did a quick shop. The prices were fairly high and I knew I could beat them down from there 60,000RP initial offers to about 20-25,000RP…but we were in a hurry and we’re talking about A$3 here so I left it with just beating them down to 50,000RP on a couple of items…everybody happy.

Jump back in van…head home…7 seater van for whole day from 8:30am to 4:30pm with driver including all petrol, parking and entry charges…372,000RP. So we gave him 400,000RP (about A$55...makes me resent the A$28 the taxi from Tullamarine to St Albans costs for a 15 minute ride!)

40th Birthday Party

Well, needless to say, it has come and gone. Wayne has now joined the 40+ group. Much drinking took place (well, it was a cocktail party - although a few stuck to just beer) - I had at least 4 long island iced teas, 2 zombies, and numerous Bacardi and cokes and if you want to feel like a zombie the next day then that’s how to do it!

The stories that followed were quite amusing. For some reason, most people ended up in the pool - fully clothed! They either were allowed to jump in of their own accord or were chased down and thrown in. One girl decided to jump in - but she’d had to much to drink and forgot about that nice new Nokia phone in her pocket…oops!! Needless to say the plumbing in the bathrooms copped a beating and the maid earned herself a very nice tip for cleaning up the carnage the next day (and the next day…and the next day…!)

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Photos

Mt Batur
The massive volcano - the double crater. We're standing on the lip of the outer crater looking at the volcano with the inner crater.

Freaky Monster
I could just imagine Schapelle sitting watching stoned out of her brain... ;) Would be quite a trip I reckon.

Keris Dancers
This is probably the more well known dance.

Silversmith
This Mr Miyagi (Karate Kid Master) lookalike was OK with me getting a photo of him at work.

Monkey Family
Aint they cute!!!

Mini Monkey
So cute and there's plenty of room in my luggage for one or two!

Makan Time
The neverending lunch of the monkeys

Cleaning
The monkey on the right was nodding off to sleep while his mate was trying to clean him

Nursery Wing
All the mums were in a tight little group nursing their babies.

Life on the edge
The burnt ground in the background was a lava flow until a couple of years ago.

Tourists
Me and Loz at the Crater