BALI – WEEK 3 @ UBUD – 15-21 June 2024
The two weeks in Ubud didn’t start off well for Christine. On the first night, and for the next four nights, Christine undid the curtain tie backs on 3 of the 4 walls of windows so that she didn’t have the sun shining in during the afternoon and the lights during the night. And then, when the staff cleaned the room, they put the tie backs back on the curtains again … so she had to take them off again that night.
The tie back culprits.
“There is so much more they could pay attention to when cleaning other than the bloody curtain f*%king tie backs!” If hiding them in a drawer doesn’t work, she’s going to put them in the room safe!
The solution, hide them in a drawer with a note “do not put these back on curtains until I leave”, putting them in the save will be next move.
Saturday – Arrival – Lewak Estate and our 2-room villa.
We arrived around 1pm on the Saturday and settled in. My room for the next 2 weeks, the beds will be separated to twin beds when Katerina joins us on the 18th.
Our pool.
Christine’s ensuite, the bathtub is in a pool and there are a couple of gold fish in the pool.
Our sitting area and kitchen, this area overlooks the pool. Fully kitted out kitchen, stove, utensils etc, but interestingly no plates or cutlery.
Sunday – sightseeing
On Sunday morning we were driven down to the main city area so we could do some sightseeing, the traffic wasn’t as bad as it was in Canggu Beach.
Our first stop was a Balinese temple, and we were lucky enough to be there at the time when some children of the locals were getting a lesson in Balinese dancing. See the little girl in the middle, she would only have been 4 or 5.
And this little girl at the front with the grey sarong was so good, she probably was 5 or 6 but she had all the moves, it was fascinating to watch her.
The gate to the temple, you weren’t supposed to go up to the door, there were open doors either side that we could go through.
Another temple in the same compound.
The gardens in the compound.
Carving on one of the walls, this would have been about 1m x 3m.
Another entryway, the gates are probably an afterthought, but I really love their designs.
Typical electrical set up for the businesses down the main road.
Another nod to Aaron & Tino – a storm water/drain cover.
Monday – Monkey Forest
On our second day, we paid a visit to the Monkey Forest, a well-known attraction. Apart from the beautiful rain forest, and the monkeys, there were numerous carvings along the walkway. Breasts featured in a lot of the carvings, nor sure what the significance was or is.
More carvings and our first sight of some of the approx 1500 monkeys on the site.
The main temple (which you couldn’t access) at the Monkey Forest. Very ornate. When I asked a driver (a couple of days later) how old some of the temples were, he said that he thought many of them were built in the 1100th Century.
The wall outside of the temple, many of the areas had signs “don’t climb steps” or “don’t walk all over this area” … or words to that effect.
The population comprises Balinese long tailed Macaques (Macaca fascicularis) and there are approximately 1050 in the estate and are divided into 7 groups, each group ranging in a certain area (that they know and usually don’t venture out of). This one is having a lovely time being groomed.
Lovely shot of a mother and baby. Female monkeys are pregnant for nearly 6 months and usually have one infant, twins are very rare. The infant stays with the mother for around 10 months by which time she’s probably ready to have another infant. Sometimes we saw one infant suckling with another juvenile trying to have a drink too.
Another grouping, whilst the Forest is fenced, this is not to keep the monkeys in, but to keep tourists and humans out at night. The monkeys sleep during the evening. They sometimes take themselves on a trip outside the forest, we saw about a dozen of them in the main street wandering around on the electricity wiring above the shops.
Example of the nice walkways in the park.
Christine was sitting down on the wall when this one climbed up and sat on her lap. Before we came in, the information board said “Do not look the monkey in the eye! this is interpreted as a sign of aggression”. Christine had a chat with it but made sure not to look it in the eye!
The koi pond as we were leaving, we had bought1 some fish food so wanted to get rid of it. It was a feeding frenzy!
Now that we’ve broken the rule about getting on motor cycles, we took one back to the villa.
Tuesday – I wasn’t feeling all that well on Tuesday, so we basically laid around and binge watched Sweet Tooth. A lot of people had asked me what I was going to do with all that time in Bali. Binge watching Netflix wasn’t on the radar but was really nice just laying around for the day in the air-conditioning – oh yes, and I played on-line Bridge with Gary, and we came third (bonus). I stayed up really late on Tuesday night because Katerina (who’s joining us for 2 weeks) would not be arriving in Denpasar until 11pm and then it’s an hour’s drive to the villa, so I wanted to welcome her and help her settle in. Consequently, neither of us were bright eyed on Wednesday morning.
Wednesday – The Ubud Water Palace & Shopping. Katerina is familiar with Ubud so we put ourselves in her capable hands to show us around.
First stop the Lotus Pool at the Ubud Water Palace. This is a huge complex and very popular with tourists.
You pay $5 to get in and included in the price is a sari, jacket and head piece that all tourists have to wear – so, everyone you see in purple and white is a tourist. I managed to get a shot of the gate to the temple grounds without too many tourists in it.
I’ve never seen actual lotus seed pods before (those round things you can see), the seeds are edible (I think).
Purple must be an important colour as there were a lot of purple umbrellas and saris on some of the carvings. Apparently, construction of this palace occurred from 1950 to 1952.
Beautifully decorated doors are common around Bali, this one is unusually beautiful, usually beyond the door is a wall so you cannot walk straight through, you must walk through and then turn left or right.
These look like warriors.
There are fountains all over the place, and what we found interesting was the grass in lines between cement walkways … we found this in a few temples over the next couple of days.
More tourists, some were in line waiting to have their photo taken.
Once we’d had our fill, we left and walked down towards the river to have lunch at a restaurant that Katerina recommended, along the way we stopped into Casa Luna (where we made a reservation for Saturday night), this is a truly stunning cafe, can’t wait to come back. I loved the architecture, particularly the red louvre doors.
A carving at Casa Luna, very intricate. Would love to know how old it is.
On the way down to Murni’s Cave (which was an amazing place, beautiful gardens and great food), I took note of these lovely old street lamps. I’m expecting that in the not too distant future these will be taken down and sold as antique artifacts.
After lunch I went shopping with the two Shopping Queens – boy do they know how to shop. I was exhausted by the time we got back to the Villa.
Thursday – More Shopping – our intention was to go to a dress shop where we’d seen a nice dress the previous day, so we wanted to go down bright and early (around 10am), and try the dress on before I got hot and sweaty. I managed to walk past the shop (I was tricked because it wasn’t yet open), so we stopped at some other shops. Boy can those ladies shop. Anyway, we visited actual shops, with unique products, rather than little touristy places that most people go. I bought a lovely black dress, a beautiful red shirt, earrings and some beautiful cards. Then on the way to lunch we came across a sari shop – this would be one that the tourists don’t go into, and I found a sari that I liked and plan to hang on my bedroom wall (we’ll see).
On the way to our lunch stop, going past all the touristy shops, can’t get past them quickly enough. So many of them, in virtually every street, all with the same products, I can’t see how they make any money, most people just walk on by.
It took us about an hour or so to get to the restaurant, we had to do many stops in more shops, particularly the jewelry shops (lol).
Katerina has done numerous trips to Bali and speaks some Indonesian so wanted us to visit Wayan’s Cafe (she knew the owner back in the days she visited – roughly 15 years ago). Sadly, the owner died back in January so Katerina only just missed seeing her again. We stopped her for lunch.
The property that the restaurant is on, stretches back for what looks to me like the size of the old 1/4 acre blocks in Sydney, only double the depth. The gardens were stunning, lots of water features and small pavilions to sit in for lunch or dinner.
Can you believe the toilet? Has a water feature and a pond with goldfish in it. This was the ladies, didn’t look to see what the gents was like!
On the way to finding a couple of motor cycles, I popped my head through this gate, this is the home of someone, and at the front these are the family shrines and their temple. I have heard now that every family compound has its own shrine.
Friday – Waterfall tour – Katerina organised a full day tour of some waterfalls in the area. Our lovely driver Leo picked us up at 8.30am and off we headed. Apart from the waterfalls, the good thing about the tour was getting out of the city and seeing how the local Balinese live.
Tegenungan Waterfall, or first … there’s a barrier there so people can’t swim under it (a cable with floats on it). The “do’s and don’ts” sign said “don’t swim under the waterfall, something will probably fall”.
Near the waterfall was this enterprising person, you paid Rp2000 (A$0.20) to hold up a sign to have your photo taken in front of the waterfall. This was the only waterfall with these signs available.
Lovely lush rice paddy on the way to Tibumana Waterfall, our second one for the day.
Nice walk way down to the waterfall, and the stairs had good railings. Very lush vegetation.
Christine on the first of two suspension bridges, this one was quite sturdy.
This one not so sturdy. It’s funny, over in NZ where we regularly use suspension bridges to get over rivers, the ones in NZ are made of metal and are rock solid, yet, there’s usually a rule “1 person at a time crossing”, here, on this dodgy looking bridge I saw about 6 people cross on it at the same time. I waited until it was clear before I went across.
The waterfall when we got to it, classic in shape, and if the water had been clearer and not so many tourists around I probably would have swum under it, but none of us were up for swimming today.
On the way to Tukad Cepung Waterfalll. There were quite a few steps (and they were very deep steps) to this level section of track which had a canal beside it. The canal was there to feed water to the rice paddies downstream. It was incredibly well built and Katerina and I figured it had been there for many many years. The waterfalls that we saw today have only been open to tourists for 7 years, so originally this walk way would have been to service the rice paddies.
Leo and I were the only ones who persevered to see this waterfall. Christine had had enough of the steps and the muddy creed we had to walk along didn’t appeal. Katerina turned back once I stepped into the creek and got wet shoes. The waterfall is stunning, particularly at this time of day with the light, but it is very, very popular with tourists (note that I couldn’t get a shot without tourists in the frame – unlike the other three waterfalls). This is the iconic Instagram shot for a lot of people.
After making my way back to the steps, it was a half hour of uphill on the biggest steps I’ve had to use, in some spots I had to pull myself up using the railing. Leo then drove us to our lunch spot, a lovely restaurant overlooking a rainforest valley. Great day out, thanks Katerina for organising it.
And so ended our third week in Bali, we have another week to go at Ubud, but this post is already too long will do another post next week after our further adventures. Again, big thanks to Christine for organising so many things, and Katerina for joining us.