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Published: November 19th 2023
With only one drop of indigo, the whole pot of milk is ruined… ~ Indonesian Proverb
HE SAID... Today we were exploring the mountain town of
Ubud– by foot.
Location Ubud is a bustling mountain town in central Bali.
Transport Walking.
Accommodation Puri Padi. An extensive hotel complex with well-kept gardens. The walk from reception to our room was quite a distance, but enjoyable enough. The room itself was large but basic, with heavy wooden furniture. I loved our small private terrace. The door to the terrace was locked from the inside with a wooden latch, which you had to carefully slide through two wooden staples. It wasn’t exactly secure, but it had an old-world charm.
Cuisine …Breakfast (Puri Padi, Ubud)…
We enjoyed a late breakfast on our first morning in Ubud, which is very rare for us. There were a few reasons for this. Firstly, we had not heard a call to prayer. Either there hadn’t been one, or it was too far away to hear. Secondly, we had a free day, with no time-related obligations. The day was ours. So for the first time on our Indonesian adventure, we slept in.
The open-sided dining area at Puri Padi was small and intimate. We were offered a choice between
two breakfast options – American or Indonesian. We decided on Indonesian. I opted for
mee goreng (stir-fried noodles), while Ren went for the
nasi goreng (stir-fried rice). Ren also asked for some French toast from the American menu. Each dish came with a plate of fruit, orange cordial and tea.
It certainly wasn’t the best breakfast of our Indonesian adventure, but my
mee goreng was tasty enough, especially with a splash of trusty ABC Asli Chilli Sauce from a bottle.
…Afternoon Snack (Café Wayan and Bakery, Ubud)…
On our self-guided walking tour of Ubud, we stumbled upon Café Wayan and Bakery in the middle of the day. It looked so cool and comfortable, we couldn’t resist. The back of the eatery is set outdoors in leafy surrounds, so this is where we settled at a traditional low Balinese wooden table. We sat on cushions on the floor and ordered the following:
>
dadr gulung (rolled green crepes filled with coconut palm sugar and served with vanilla ice cream)
> homemade lemongrass ice cream
> banana lassi.
This place was amazing. It was so peaceful, tranquil and relaxing – the polar opposite of the streets of Ubud. Something
within both of us wanted to settle here for the rest of the afternoon. However, our self-guided walking tour of Ubud’s main centre was incomplete. We had to drag ourselves from the table and venture back out into the searing heat of this exotic mountain town.
…Dinner (Otokafe, Ubud)…
We walked to Otokafe for dinner in the early evening. The place was only fifty or so metres along the road from our hotel complex (Puri Padi), and it was packed with local and foreign tourists. The menu had a lot of Western dishes, but we opted for the following:
>
otto fried rice (wok fried rice with chicken, vegetables, pickles, fried egg, crackers and sambal)
>
tongseng (braised goat in curry gravy with vegetables and rice).
The
tongseng was fabulous. It was the first time I’d had goat since arriving in Indonesia, and it was so well cooked and flavoursome. The otto fried rice – basically an in-house
nasi goreng – was great as well, although possibly not as good as some of the
nasi goreng’s we’d sampled over the past two weeks. I also tried Prost, a local Indonesian beer, for the first time.
During the
meal a live five-piece reggae band started playing – drums, bass, keyboards, guitar and a wandering vocalist. They were very good, but it pretty well stifled the conversation around our table from that point onwards.
Highlights …Exploring Ubud by foot…
We headed out into the crowded streets of Ubud around midday, and the sun was seriously hot. The main town centre of Ubud is arranged in a long rectangular shape, which is easy to navigate. Our taxi ride to Casa Luna the previous evening helped a lot, as the popular restaurant is located in the heart of the town. We committed that trip to memory – or as much as we could in the darkness of night.
We walked up Jl Hanoman, turned left into Jl Raya Ubud and found ourselves in front of Ubud Palace. Most of the courtyards are not accessible to the public, but the palace is still worth a visit. The old carved stone, cool shady areas, ornate wooden doors and bright flowers all created a very relaxed and calm atmosphere.
We walked a little further along Jl Raya Ubud to Pura Taman Saraswati, a small Hindu temple hidden behind a Starbucks franchise.
It took a while to navigate the annoying Instagrammers monopolising the pond of lotus blossoms at the front of the temple, but once we got through, the place was quite stunning. It was also very hot! Grabbing whatever shade was available, we ventured out into the sun every now and then to capture a photograph, then quickly retreated to lean against the cold, moss-covered stone of the temple.
We left the temple and continued walking along narrow footpaths, turning left into Monkey Forest Road. We were now halfway into our self-guided tour of Ubud’s town centre. We hadn’t walked far when we stumbled upon Café Wayan and Bakery. This was an ideal place for a light refreshing snack, which I touch on in my
cuisine section above.
Feeling very relaxed, we continued walking down Monkey Forest Road to the lush Monkey Forest itself. We didn’t enter the gated forest, as the warnings were numerous and the cost was a little excessive. Besides, there were more than enough monkeys on the street outside the gated forest to keep our interest.
We continued walking to the junction of Monkey Forest Road and Jl Hanoman, where we completed the rectangular
circuit of Ubud’s main town centre. We had been navigating Ubud’s crowded narrow streets for three and a half hours. We dropped into a local supermarket to pick up some drinks, then made our way back to the hotel, arriving at 4pm. We had been exposed to Ubud’s hot afternoon sun for many hours, and we were exhausted. We settled on the cool shady terrace (attached to our room) and caught up on our travel notes. It was time for a late afternoon beer!
We headed over the road for dinner, then wandered back to the hotel and settled on our terrace, where we worked on our travel notes in the balmy evening.
Lowlights …The touristic takeover of Balinese towns…
I was stunned (and a little saddened) by the number of tourists flooding the streets of this charming mountain town. I covered this in my first blog on Ubud, so I will not dwell on it here. I was, after all, one of the many tourists flooding the streets of Ubud. The irony was not lost on me.
SHE SAID... When we woke in our darkened Puri Padi Hotel room in
Ubud, I was a
bit disorientated. Not only was it odd for us to have closed the blinds (we both love waking to natural light), but we also realised it was 7am and we’d slept in! We had got so used to the imam’s call to prayer waking us in Java that we had stopped setting our alarms. However, it didn’t at all matter that we’d woken later than usual, because the day was ours and our bodies obviously needed a rest. This was our first proper sleep-in on the trip! We kept dozing until 8am before finally dragging ourselves up.
I opened the blinds to flood the room with light, but realised within a few seconds why we’d closed them in the first place – we were on the ground floor of a small four-room building, and there was a path running right past our window! I’d normally whinge about this lack of privacy, but in this case, I was glad we had the security of staff constantly walking around at this end of the long narrow hotel property. Our terrace door was of the heavy traditional wooden type with a traditional locking mechanism that I’d hardly call secure!
Even though
our room was a fair distance from reception, we had reasonable wifi to check email and social media before walking to the breakfast room. We got there half an hour before it closed and were shown a simple breakfast menu on a board. The American breakfast was a mish mash of western options, and the Indonesian breakfast had a choice of either
mee goreng (fried noodles) or
nasi goreng (fried rice)… so between us we chose each of the Indonesian options. We could also help ourselves to a fruit platter (with delicious pineapple and watermelon), orange cordial, and tea and coffee.
My
nasi goreng with an omelette wasn’t the best, and it needed copious amounts of ABC Asli hot sauce to give it flavour. I also asked for a side of French toast (from the American menu), because I had seen it on many menus and I was very curious. Well, my curiosity wasn’t rewarded. It was eggy bread with onions, but the bread was quite sweet! A very weird taste sensation.
We finished our long breakfast and said another goodbye to the remaining member of our old trip (Al, Hannah, Stephan and Warren), who had also lingered
over a late breakfast. They had seen some of our new trip mates at breakfast earlier, and were very frank in their assessment of them – it was hilarious, and we promised to let them know if their predictions were accurate.
After pottering around in our room a bit more – seeing to a work issue and sorting our packs out – we eventually left the hotel at midday to explore central Ubud. We were using our trusty Lonely Planet Guide to plot our self-guided tour, and I had been looking forward it.
We had a rough idea of the city layout from our taxi rides to and from dinner the night before. We merely had to walk straight down our hotel’s road (Jalan Hanoman) to Jalan Raya Ubud which held all the sights of central Ubud we wanted to see. It was only about three or four blocks, but it was already hot and the narrow pavement was pretty broken up. The road itself wasn’t that busy, but the traffic that passed did so at such a speed that it wasn’t worth risking our lives to walk on the road.
While concentrating on our footing, we
were surprised by familiar looking faces that also recognised us. It’s a very weird feeling being recognised in a foreign place; and it turned out to be two more trip mates Ramin and Naheed who hadn’t left yet, and were returning to the hotel after a spot of shopping. It’s always funny when you’ve already said your goodbyes to people but keep running into them. 😊
We’d read that Ubud was full of boutiques and brand shops, and that the wholefoods / yoga set had commandeered parts of the town. There was much evidence of both these things as we walked that morning. Every single cafe we passed advertised organic produce; and every single shop was aimed at the tourist market. I didn’t see a single local shop. And then there were the actual tourists themselves – we were surrounded by Australian accents everywhere we went. It was very weird. The film
Eat Pray Love has a lot to answer for!
I should also note that the crazy speeding mopeds we saw that morning were all being driven by young overseas tourists. Susi (our group leader) had actually warned us to be mindful of them, as they didn’t
know the roads and often caused accidents. I felt so sorry for the locals having to share their world with these hooning disrespectful tourists.
We walked to the Royal Ubud Palace first. The royal family still lives here, but has opened a few courtyards to the public. The sections we saw were full of traditional buildings, beautiful wooden and stone carvings, and lovely frangipani trees. Even though everything dated after the 1917 earthquake, it was beautiful. There was a
kori (roofed gate) into the attached Puri Saren Agung temple that only admitted locals who were going in to pray. We stood in the shade of a pavilion and watched as women streamed in and out of that gate. They were all dressed in beautiful traditional Balinese outfits, and I guessed western clothing probably isn’t appropriate for religious or official gatherings in Bali.
The traditional Balinese outfits are as beautiful as they are graceful. Women wear a white cotton or lace
kebaya (blouse) with a tight-fitting
kamben (similar to a sarong, that’s usually traditional batik fabric), a coloured sash around their waist and a decorative headpiece or flower in their hair. The men are similarly attired with a white
shirt, a loose-fitting sarong (in a traditional fabric like batik or songket) with a
saput (an overlay of a contrasting fabric), a sash and a traditional headpiece called an
udeng. If we get the opportunity to dress up in Balinese traditional outfits on this trip, I’m definitely doing it!
Next on our walking tour was the Pura Taman Saraswati Temple. We walked to where we thought it should be, but we just couldn’t find the entrance. After a while we were sure we’d overshot the mark and asked for directions. We were told to walk in behind the Starbucks! And there it was… a beautiful old-world temple overshadowed by an ugly Starbucks building with a sprawling cafe shoved into the space on the other side of it! How did this planning ever get approved?
I loved the temple at first sight, However, we hit our first irate-at-influencers moment before we’d even got to the temple. The very attractive entrance is along a long wooden walkway over a large lotus pond and water garden. We noticed a small queue of people waiting to take photos on the walkway, and seeing as we wanted to too, we were happy to
wait for them.
Well, the first couple in line turned out to be Instagrammers of the worst kind! They took their sweet time setting up shots, walking towards the camera a million times, checking the footage, repeating the walk but without his fedora hat this time etc. etc.! After a few minutes everyone else waiting got really sick of it and we all walked through their shots to get to the temple. The entrance of the Taman Saraswati Temple is absolutely gorgeous, and I totally understand wanting to photograph it. But they could have done so without being such selfish and entitled gits. 😖
Soon after arriving at the beautiful roofed
kori gates of the temple, we hit our second irate-at-influencers moment – the whole temple was closed off to tourists! We discovered the authorities had to do this because they were sick of disrespectful tourists desecrating their holy spaces. I totally understand their position, but we all suffer because of the improper behaviour of a few. 😖
I was doubly disappointed because this temple honours Dewi Saraswati (the goddess of wisdom), and I had been really looking forward to seeing it. We spent some time photographing
the areas we had access to – the beautiful gates, the mossy statues and a few side walkways that led to smaller picturesque gates (that were also locked). It was a very hot afternoon and I was hesitant to leave the semi-shade of the temple and walk back onto the hot main street; but we had more temples to see.
We attempted to access other small temples which were hidden away in plain site on the main road. Unfortunately, the disappointments kept coming. It seems all the temples in Ubud have followed the example of Taman Saraswati Temple and closed their doors to tourists. As I said, it’s totally understandable, and probably far easier than employing temple staff to police the dress and behaviour of idiots.
By now we’d been walking in the hot sun for a while, so we decided it was time for some downtime. Normally we’d have settled in one of the numerous open-sided cafes on the main street and spent the afternoon watching the hustle and bustle of the city. However, we both felt we needed somewhere quieter, and off the main road.
We walked back to the hotel via Jalan Wanara Wana
(Monkey Forest Road) which ran parallel to our hotel road and had a slightly different and possibly more upmarket feel. We weren’t hungry enough for a full lunch, but desperately wanted a break from the sun – along with something very very cold. We found Café Wayun and Bakery, which was absolutely perfect. It was a large property with many small opened-sided traditional
bales (open pavilions) dotted throughout a beautiful garden. We picked an empty one and settled at a low table with cushions on the floor. Andrew loved his icy cold mango lassi, and the homemade lemongrass ice cream I ordered was seriously luscious! We also shared a local sweet snack –
dadar gulung (green crepes rolled up with a palm sugar and coconut filling), that was served with vanilla ice cream.
Mum used to make us a very similar Sri Lanakan dish (
pol pani) for afternoon tea when we were little, although the crepes were never green. I keep being continually amazed at the many similarities between Sri Lankan and Indonesian food. It had never occurred to me that the many colonial masters who roamed this part of the world many centuries ago not only forced their
own culture on their subjects, but also cross-pollinated aspects of food and traditions across their many colonies.
Anyway, back to Ubud. Sitting in this beautiful
bale, shaded from the sun and the ruckus of the streets of central Ubud; I really took the Balinese concept of balance and harmony to heart. The decadence of good food and luxurious surrounds were brought to earth by our immersion in a serene garden with the sound of water trickling through bamboo in the pond next to us. I totally get the appeal of Bali that brings Australians here in their thousands. However, very sadly, as with over-tourism everywhere in the world… the precious and beautiful things which attract the crowds are ironically killed by those very crowds.
We pulled ourselves away from this haven of relaxation and continued our journey down Monkey Forest Road. Very obviously, the road is named for the Monkey Forest at the end of it, but neither of us were sure about entering the forest itself. Firstly, it’s quite expensive for what it is, and secondly, it’s full of tourists who contribute to the irresponsible behaviour of feeding wild monkeys for photos etc.
Instagram feeds of
the Monkey Forest are full of ‘monkey selfies’ – where a person paid to take posed photos of tourists encourages a monkey to approach the camera and take food out of their hand. When the monkey reaches for the food, the photo is taken, making it look like the monkey has taken a selfie with the tourists. I’m absolutely not a fan of this type of irresponsible travel behaviour. In addition, Susi had warned us that the monkeys have honed their thieving skills, because the guards swap food for the sunglasses, jewellery, phones etc that the monkeys forcible take from tourists. They have inadvertently trained them to steal!
We discussed it, but decided not to enter the forest for the above reasons, and also because there were many monkeys on the trees and in the streets around the gated forest anyway. I love animals and generally love monkeys too… but I’m not a fan of the macaque genus. Due to vast habitat loss, they have become the most urbanised of monkeys in Asia, and they have developed very aggressive behaviours in order to survive. These long-tailed macaques seem much calmer than their rhesus cousins in south Asia, and I
absolutely know that this is a human-created problem… but I still give them a wide berth when I can.
We visited the Coco Supermarket near our hotel to get more beers for Andrew, and I finally managed to find the 100% mango juice I’d been looking for on this trip! All the other juices had been disappointingly super sweet with added sugar. While walking through our hotel’s garden, we both commented on the beautiful sound of
gamelan we’d constantly heard since our arrival. Gamelan is an orchestral arrangement of traditional Indonesian percussive instruments. It was a beautiful sound, and I wondered if it was wafting over from one of the many temples that lined our street. We’d seen many temples selling tickets for evening Balinese dance performances, so it was feasible that this was rehearsal music. Regardless, it was a very soothing and calming sound, and I will always associate it with our stay in Ubud.
We returned to our room and spent the rest of the late afternoon and early evening relaxing with drinks, chips (crisps), biscuits and cups of tea. It was so good to put our feet up after many hours of walking in the
hot sun, and we alternated between the lovely cool aircon inside and the lovely but warm terrace – the best of both worlds! It was really good to finally start catching up on our travel notes, but not long afterwards, it was time to get ready for the 6pm group meeting of our next Intrepid Travel trip –
Beautiful Bali.
This was the second part of the
Java and Bali Explorer combination trip, and even though we were continuing with the same amazing group leader (Susi), it was going to be a whole new group. We lost track of time a bit and arrived at the group meeting with only a few minutes to spare – which is never a good look. We met our fellow travellers for the next nine days: Louise and Zac (Australia), Shaheen and Paniz (Canada), Faye (UK), Diane (UK) Susan (UK), Eva (Slovakia) and Christopher (Australia). At this point it was a very unfathomable group… and there was a tangible vibe of tentativeness. I wasn’t sure if this was because only a few had travelled with Intrepid before, or because a few were new to Asia, or if it was because there were so
many single travellers (who can sometimes take longer to get comfortable with strangers than the couples do). Time will tell.
We regrouped at 7pm to have dinner at Otokafe, which was just across the road from the hotel. The food was good, but a live reggae band started not long after we arrived… and they were loud. Too loud for getting to know new group members. I ordered the
ayam nasi goreng (fried rice with chicken), while Andrew had the
tongseng soup with goat. Both dishes were delicious.
We found out during dinner that it was Louise’s birthday, and after a whisper from Susi to the waiting staff, the band played a reggae version of Happy Birthday to her. She was presented with a piece of cake with a candle. It was all very sweet. Travel birthdays are so special. 😊
One of the group members turned up late to dinner, and there was a bit of attitude that we hadn’t waited for her. A long story followed about how she’d been walking up and down the street trying to find us. Susi tried to explain that we’d waited until after the appointed time; but it didn’t
help that someone else in the group tried to suck up to the late comer by privately telling her they’d asked the group to wait but the plea was ignored. This was a blatant lie. It wasn’t really an auspicious start to good group dynamics… especially after the sense I’d had at the group meeting earlier. 😞
We’d all finished eating and the late order still hadn’t arrived. We waited for a while, but my eyes were literally closing at the table, and a few of us excused ourselves and returned to the hotel. As far as dinner venues go, even though the loud reggae band (that prevented conversation) had made the first dinner even more awkward than usual, I was very grateful that we could cross the road and return to our room in a matter of quickly. I was asleep not long afterwards, while Andrew wrote travel notes on the terrace.
Ubud has been a mixed bag for me so far. There’s something very beautiful and lovable about the place, but over-tourism gives it a feeling of insincerity and artificiality in parts that I just couldn’t shake off. When the vast majority of locals you see
in the main central part of town are only there to service the tourism industry – it’s a bit of a worry for the cultural health of a town.
The worshipers piling into the temple at Ubud Palace earlier in the day where the only locals we’d seen who were going about their daily lives. I wondered where they lived, and what they thought of the Australian / overseas tourist take-over of their gorgeous little home high in the central mountains. We were going out of central Ubud the following day, and I was really hoping to see a more local side of the town.
See you around Ubud!
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Jasmin Baker
non-member comment
Yum!
I can almost taste this one. I know how good ice cream can taste in that hot hot hot weather