The Wandering Hart

For our first few days in Indonesia we decided to go to Bali….but not the beaches! Instead we went to Ubud, a popular city tourist destination nearer the center of the island of Bali and known for its cultural attractions. We stayed at a small guest house for about $20USD per night and tried to do just one activity per day and then relax for most of our time there.

On the first day our activity was seeing some monkeys! The Monkey Forest is a pretty large monkey sanctuary walking distance from the center of Ubud. The forest is full of both temples and monkeys which makes for a pretty cool atmosphere and the monkeys really don’t mind being around humans. You can even opt to have one climb on you for a photo op but I avoided that option – no desperate need to touch the monkeys on my end! We got a million photos of the monkeys and some of the temple structures. In the middle of the forest there was also a performance of a traditional Indonesian dance called the frog dance which was very cool. Overall it was a great mix of seeing some culture and some wildlife to kick off our Indonesia days!

For day two we wanted to go to the Tegalalang Rice Terraces about a 20 minute ride outside Ubud. Our guest house’s owner, Jiwa, was nice enough to help us find a driver for the morning and we were off! To be honest these rice terraces are now super touristy and pretty cheesy. There was a 300k IDR (about $20USD) package you could buy to do all the Instagram staged shots they had set up including things like sitting in a giant bird nest. We opted instead for the cheaper package (150k IDR) that included wandering around the rice terraces and doing one swing. The swing was actually really fun and, I have to admit, makes for cool photos. The walk around the terraces itself was also cool because we got to see the rice in different stages as we went. Plus the whole place is very picturesque. It’s worth going but be prepared for a very tourist-trap-like experience.

On day 3 we wanted to focus on cultural activities so we started the day by touring Ubud Palace and Saraswati Temple. Walking around each takes less than 15 minutes but they’re pretty sites and close to Ubud downtown. Plus the lotuses at Saraswati Temple were in full bloom and were beautiful!

In the evening we went to the kecak fire dance at a local temple. It’s easy to get tickets because there are people selling them on the street around Ubud Palace and I think there’s at least one show happening around Ubud each night. I maybe thought as we were buying the tickets on the street that it was 50/50 on being a scam….but I was delightfully surprised to actually get to see a show! The show itself involved less fire than I expected but it featured beautiful dancing, a large group of men impressively performing all the music acapella for the show, and a fun performance and fire dance by the monkey general Hanuman. I thought it was a fun way to experience some more Balinese culture.

Our last day we focused mostly on relaxing but first we had to do the Campuhan Ridge Walk! This is a paved trail along a ridge on the edge of Ubud and gives very nice views of the surrounding jungle. We tried to go see the sunrise but sadly it was a cloudy morning…but at least we beat the heat! In the afternoon we got hour long massages at a local spa for only $12 USD per person – now I see why massages are so popular around here! It was a nice relaxing way to end our Bali stay.