BALI – Week 4 @ Ubud – 22 – 30 June 2024
Well, it’s been four weeks now and we still can’t get our heads around the bloody zeros with the Indonesian Rupiah! It started when Christine and I did some currency exchange at Sydney Airport, A$250 for RP2,736,626, most of them in RP100,000 notes. From there on it was all downhill.
Those red notes are RP100,000 and worth roughly $10. There are no metal coins that we’ve come across, the RP2,000 notes are worth 20¢.
We’re now into Week 4, still doing lots of browsing in the shops (and constantly converting RP to A$ to see whether or not something is worth the price. For example, I bought a dress in one shop that was A$100 (a fixed price, no bargaining), and yet the motorcycle to get me back to the villa it was A$2.
On Saturday evening, Katerina took us to Casa Luna for dinner, we splurged with cocktails and then had an amazing dinner. Very good restaurant with a fabulous atmosphere.
Looking for a taxi after dinner at Casa Luna, we asked a guy and then next thing you know he disappears. Then 5 minutes later he pulls up in a car, they must have their cars parked down an alley somewhere, you certainly couldn’t park them on the road.
Not sure what we did on Sunday, probably laid around till lunchtime then went shopping, the days were starting to blend into each other. On Monday Christine and I had massages, the masseuse asked whether I wanted soft, medium or strong, I chose medium, OMG, I’d hate to see what strong was it was punishing.
I played (bad) bridge on Tuesday morning and then Katerina and I headed downtown to look at a couple of shops and then check out the Ubud Rice Paddies.
Door into a house temple decorated with lots of marigold flowers.
The walk up to the paddies was a k or two, and it was good because we had walked away from the tourist area and all the shops and were walking along a village road. Ducks having a feed in a rice paddy. Duck is a popular food in Bali.
The rice paddies, most of them have already been harvested and so are laying fallow. All in all a nice walk away from all the tourists.
On Wednesday, Katerina had organised a cross country trip for us with a car and our own driver.
Our first stop was the Tegalalang Rice Terraces, just a 15 minute drive north of Ubud. Most photos you see the paddies are a vivid bright green, when we saw them, they were pretty spectacular but the rice had been harvested, so not so green. What we did see though was a woman on the second top tier weeding the side of the tier, that was unexpected.
Another view of the paddies, this particular terrace had rice seeds in it but probably about 2 weeks off from being harvested. Rice terraces date back to the 11th Century and these ones are centuries old, one has to wonder though, with all the monsoon weather that they have in Bali, how the terraces haven’t eroded away, they seem, after all to be just mud.
Next stop further north was Mount Batur an active volcano located at the center of two concentric calderas. The first documented eruption was in 1804 and the most recent was in 2000, which is probably the dark lava patch on the side of the mountain.
We then hit the road again and drove for about 2 hours through rainforests.
We passed a few roads off to the right, obviously leading to villages. These villages would have been well and truly off the beaten track, no tourists at all.
Now we’re in in farming country, still a lot of forest, with the occasional small farm. I’m getting to see what I’ve been wanting to see, what the “old Bali” looked like before tourists. Thank you so much Katerina for organising this trip.
They grow oranges up in the higher altitudes, I’ve eaten one or two but they’re not all that sweet.
Early on in the trip the driver told us that today was a special celebration. Not sure what the celebration was, but all along the way the men and women were dressed in traditional Balinese dress, and there were many examples of offerings being made. This scene (taken from the car as it passed by), was outside a village temple.
More remote rural villages taken from the road.
A woman making an offering at a roadside temple, at least I think this qualifies as a temple.
We saw many woman walking along the side of the road(s) with the daily offerings in a basket on their head. Note the political posters in the background.
I’ve been wanting to photograph one of the rice seedling nurseries that I’ve come across, here’s one of them. What I find fascinating is that when they are planting the rice from these seedlings, the rows are absolutely straight … how do they do that without a string line?
Beside the road, I also noticed a lot of fences made from bamboo, not sure if something was being kept in the fence, or kept out.
We’d been on the road for about 3 hours now and eventually made our way to the Tirta Gangga Water Palace. This was a former royal palace named after the sacred river Ganges, and is noted for the Karangasem palace, bathing pools and its temple. The complex was built in 1946 by the last king of Karangsem (now dead) and was intended as a recreation place for the king and his family (side note, he had 24 children, 3 wives – concurrently – and numerous concubines. The eldest son lives on the property and the family still owns it, curious, I asked our guide if the son worked on the property and he said “he takes the tourist entry money” I had visions of him actually taking the money each day at the ticket office. Silly me, the guide meant that he doesn’t have to work, he gets the tourist money! Another side note, the complex was destroyed almost entirely by the eruption of nearby Mount Agung in 1963, our guide told us which portions had been rebuilt.
Katerina with our guide (cost about A$5 each), and whilst I don’t usually want a guide, this one was well and truly worth it.
Looking at the complex from the entrance, it truly is impressive, covering about a hectare. All the water comes from a spring up on the side of the hill, it flows through the complex and then irrigates rice terraces down in the village.
The main pond has stepping stones all over it for the tourists to explore. These are not the original stones, they were destroyed in an earthquake.
This fountain was impressive and I managed to photograph it without any tourists around.
The three of us in front of the fountain with the biggest koi (carp) any of us have ever seen. The guide told us that the biggest ones are 20 years old.
Approaching the temple, this is the demon god.
The good god.
The royal swimming pool, which is now a public pool (you had to pay A$1 to swim in it (lol).
These are water bananas, but they don’t produce bananas, just seeds.
One of the umbrellas at the temple. I asked out guide what is the significance of the umbrellas as I’d seen them all over the place at temples. Turns out they are just there for decoration, no significance whatsoever.
Our last stop was the Pura Goa Lawah (Balinese “Bat Cave Temple”) Temple. I learned from the guy to greeted us in the temple, that there are four types of temples, the “house” temple which is the temple which is built in each family compound; the “village” temple, which everyone can go to in the village and is maintained by the village; the “professional” temples, ones that would be in, say, a hotel or business; and then the 9 big-arse temples that are scattered around the island. Pura Goa Lawah is one of these.
The temple was established in the 11th century by one of the early priests who introduced Hinduism on Bali. The temple was one of the key points during the war with the Dutch in in 1849 in the War of Kusamba. The decorations have evolved over the centuries but is nevertheless impressive.
Part of the entrance fee included a sarong for us (and it was compulsory). Here’s Katerina standing in front of the entry, the door on the right.
When we arrived, because there were ceremonies in place, we were told not to go near the people involved in the ceremony.
The cave for which the temple is named, we were only able to look here because of the bats.
The bats up close, there were thousands of them. Apparently, the cave is about 50m in length and the guy said that he is able to go in it but tourists cannot.
A shot of one of the “manaku” (maybe priests) having a rest, the ceremonies would have gone on all day.
An overview of the complex.
Once each of the Balinese had finished with their prayers, the “priest” places water on their head and for devout people, they get some rice glued to their forehead. Question, when they are old and not so flexible, how do they sit on the cement?
For our last night in Ubud, we decided to check out the newly opened French Restaurant, Gabriel’s. They cunningly didn’t have many tables/chairs set up in the entrance room, and so, it looked like they had a lot of people there (they are out of frame). The food was good, Christine had an “amazing” steak, I had fish which was “just ok”.
And we had cocktails, mango Daiquiri was ok but nothing compared to the Marquitia that I had at Casa Luna.
We were back at the villa at around 9pm, just in time for a rain front to pass through. It has rained a lot over the two weeks in Ubud.
And, so ended our two week stay in Ubud. So for those who might think of going to Ubud, some thoughts …
- It is very, very touristy. Lots of people/tourists in the main commercial area, but, if you can manage to find accommodation in the residential area, it will be quiet.
- The traffic is horrific, both cars and motorcycles, but the upside is that you can easily get a taxi, motorcycle ride anywhere.
- There’s a range of accommodation from 5 star to backpacker, but don’t expect the prices to be low.
- In the main commercial area, everywhere you go there are tourist shops for souvenirs, and pretty much every stall has the same sort of stuff.
- Footpaths are treacherous, they are usually made of cement tiles, a lot are missing, or uneven, heaps of trip hazards, so if you’re not sure-footed, beware.
Having said that, the three of us had a great time, Katerina shopped till she dropped and Christine and I lazed around and read trashy novels. Big thanks to Christine (and Ally) for organising this part of the trip and to Katerina for joining us.