Ubud

---

Hello everyone,

So from Sengiggi we caught the bus to Lembar, the slow ferry to Padangbai and then the bus to Ubud. We booked the trip with Perama which is a local tour company we've been using a lot to get around Bali and Lombok. The slow ferry was a busy experience with lots of noise and people shoving all kinds of snacks and drinks in your face for you to buy, but it wasn't as slow as we thought and we arrived to Bali ahead of schedule.

The bus to Ubud was fine but we arrived in the dark. We walked from the Perama office to Monkey Forest Street (the tourist name given to it because of the Monkey Sanctuary at the bottom of the road). We went into an expensive looking place which was way beyond budget but they said they also had a cheaper homestay up the road which we could stay at. The room was really nice and clean with hot water. We could have breakfast at the nice hotel too, so we had a little walk each morning before breakfast which was fine. We also got use of their pool!

On our first day in Ubud, it was raining which was great for the local economy but not for our purses. We spent the day running from shop to shop along the longest shopping street ever and everything in every shop was just beautiful. We bought so much nice stuff that day!

Our time in Ubud was enjoyable. The town is very cultural and quite upmarket. There are lots of nice shops with things rather than cheap market stalls and lots of spas along the two main roads. Alex had a 4 hour spa treatment session which she said was very good. I went to the same place and had a hair cut.

One day we went to the Monkey Sanctuary which was good fun. It is set in a forest around some very old hindu temples. The scenery is beautiful and the monkeys are very cheeky

After four nights, with our purses now empty and our bags far too heavy, we decided to leave Ubud, and Bali, on the overnight bus to Yogyakarta, on Java. It was a horrible, horrible bus journey. We got to Ubong bus station in Dempasar and saw that we had seats right behind the driver which we thought was awesome because we'd have extra legroom. Unfortunately, we had front row seats to every single judgment the driver made, and many of them were not very good! He was a maniac - overtaking every two seconds on teeny, winding roads! We were pretty scared. We were even more scared when something hit the front windscreen at 2am and shattered across the entire windscreen. They pulled over at a supermarket, put some tape across and drove for the next 6 hours to Yogya! The bus journey was 19 and a half hours and we were very pleased to be alive when we hopped off at Yogya in the morning. And it turns out we had a great time in the city!

Lots of Love
Naomi (and Alex)
xx

---