Ubud - The Cultural Heart of Bali

Hi all. We have been here in Ubud for the last two days, and have really taken a liking to it. It is in the central part of Bali, and is known as the cultural heart of Bali. There are lots of arts and crafts to buy, dances to attend, and temples to go to. But first I digress....

Some random information about Indonesia:
I forgot to talk about the driving here. It is crazy! One guy described it perfectly as organized confusion. Most people drive scooters, nobody signals, and people are just weaving in and out at leisure. The horn is used as the turn indicator, or just to let people know you are coming. About 1/3 of them wear helmets, and there is usually 2 or 3 people on each scooter. In the bigger cities (like Denpasar) it is utter madness to a westerner that comes from deluxe-width, organized roads.

Most think of Indonesia as the Muslim capital of the world, and indeed it is the most populous Muslim nation, but there is actually quite an array of religions throughout the archipelego. Bali, in particular is predominantly Hindu, while Lombock is Muslim. And there are some very easily noticed differences that we have observed. From a ceremonial standpoint, Bali is lovely because each morning and evening, women walk around with trays full of offering/blessings made up of bamboo leaves, flowers and incense and place them on various statues, on cars, outside certain rooms, and over doorways, then splash them with holy water. In Lombock, on the Gilis, the Islam religion was noticable by the daily prayers that are broadcast over speakers, and the observance of Friday as a very holy day where the town shuts down and everyone heads to the mosque from 11:00 to 2:00. Many more temples in Bali. And in Bali, there are dogs everywhere....in Lombock on the Gilis it was cats (dogs are seen as quite dirty, and not to be touched in the Islamic regligion).

Some people asked more about costs of things.....A typical, sit-down dinner at a nice restaurant costs us between 30,000 and 50,000 rupiah (equates to $3-5 USD). Where if you eat off a street vendor's cart, you might pay 6,000Rp for the two of us. Not bad, eh? And internet is quite prevalent. At least in the areas that tourists tend to frequent. The smaller the town, the slower the connection, but they all have it to offer. It usually cost about 300 Rp a minute ($2-3 an hour).

No sunburns yet. We are pretty diligent about lathering up on the sunscreen and wearing the hats. I have to say, we are getting quite brown though.....:)

I think that was it....back to what we've been doing.


We ended our stay in the Gili's with a night dive! (Notice I don't mention these things until after the fact for the sake of the parents!). It was my first night dive and it was spectacular....and it puts me one-fifth of the way to becoming an Advanced Open Water diver. We had great weather for it and saw some interesting anenomes, clams (huge ones), and a frog fish (a fish that cannot swim and walks on its "elbows").

Keith wanted me to include this photo - our first stop at a street vendor. Apparently he likes how I tower over the local. This is on Gili Trawangan:


The next day was entirely given to travel and we reversed our course back to Padangbai, and carried on another two hours until we reached Ubud. Thankfully we arrived before dark and had no problems finding the place we wanted to stay. It is called Sania's House, and looks like a Hindu temple all on it's own. It is very hard to describe, but lots of ornate buildings/huts/bungalows surrounding a lush, tropical garden and a pool! That was one of our requirements since we are no longer by the ocean. Yes, we had to pay a bit more for the pool. Now we are up to $6 a night. It was heavan yesterday, as when the sun comes out, it gets quite hot.

We are now definitely seeing the rainy season. Just when we thought we were going to break from the heat yesterday, the clouds rolled in, and the rains fell. And fell. And fell. Such a torrential downpour for about 4 hours! And it did the same thing today, but did not last nearly as long. The nice thing of course, is that it definitely cools the air down.

We've really enjoyed this town so far - I think when tourism is up, it can become quite overrun with tourists, as it is an easy day trip from Kuta. We feel like there are quite a few tourists here, but that is only because we have come from much smaller cities. There are still many deserted hotels and restaurants. They've got a great public market. We made our way into first thing yesterday morning and came away with some nice souveniers, and we think we did OK with the bargaining. It also runs into a huge produce market, where we saw tables full of dead chickens (bird flu!) - we only looked from afar, and had no desire to walk by it. Then we went to the Monkey Forest, where we saw lots of....you got it....monkeys!! They are living freely in this forest, and not behind cages, and are used to being fed by tourists. So like dummies, we showed up with a handful of bananas and almost got mauled by these creatures. A couple even jumped up on Keith. They are known to get aggressive, so I didn't want one on me and did a typical girl scream and jump up and down when they tried to get on me, and got rid of the bananas as soon as I could. It was kind of weird, but I guess cool to see the monkeys.
Here's a monkey enjoying our banana:


That evening we went to see a fire/monkey dance (ketchet), which was so cool. There were at least 100 performers and 6 audience members. Because of the rain, they had to move it into a barn type structure, but it was still a need experience. Most of the performers were men in sarongs that sat on the floor and did this really cool chanting that provided the beat for the dancers. Then the dancers came out with very ornate costumes and did their traditional dance that told a story of a king and his wife as they fought the evil empire. The chanting was my favorite part.
Here's a look at the dance:


Today, we decided it was time to get some exercise, so we rented bikes, and road outside of town about 15 km to a famous temple called Gulung Kawi. It was a nice ride. Uphill all the way, and no rain, so we had sweat pouring out of every pore, but we were rewarded with a dramatic temple, great scenery along the way, and a downhill trip home. It was nice to see more of the smaller villages and people going about their everyday life, and every child we passed screamed out with joy, "Hellloooo!".
Here's Keith outside one of the main parts of the temple (I forget what they called this part....):


Here's the scenic rice paddies surrounding the temple:


And now you're caught up. The afternoon rain has ceased, and we're scheduled for a massage at 5:00 so we must be going! Tomorrow, we'll do a cooking class, and probably take off for the north part of the island the next day.