First and foremost, we didn’t take enough pictures in Bali to truly express the beauty the lies within this tiny section of Indonesia. After an amazing but exhausting time in Australia, when we had decided we were going to walk everywhere (we walked 25km JUST the day before), Bali was deemed as our chill/lounge spot during our trip. When we booked our place in Bali, the man sent us the address after we had taken flight so we had no idea where we were going when we landed in Bali.
Reading in our travel book about the Taxis in Bali, we were instructed to walk outside the airport and across the street to take a metered taxi with Blue Bird Group because all others would be an overly exaggerated flat rate price. The second we walked out of customs we were swarmed with “taxi, taxi, taxi!” “where you going, taxi, taxi”, as we made our way slowly through the masses of taxi drivers. A few in which followed us outside kept trying to insist they were cheaper than the metered taxis, all of which we knew they would say. Being kind of frustrated because the amount of people that were clobbering us we missed our turn for the Blue Bird Group taxis and found ourself looking like idiots outside of a parking garage. Not even one second after passing the entrance of the garage a man came out, “taxi, taxi, where you going, I take you”. After telling him no thanks 3 or 4 times, being frustrated a bit and not wanting to retrace our steps through the crowd to find the Blue Bird Group we negotiated with the man. We ended up getting about the same price we were expecting to pay a metered taxi. Not knowing the exact location we were staying, we knew the town and the general area. I told the man to take us to the Grand Palace, a hindu temple coincidently on the same road we ended up staying on.
On we go! Riding down the road I caught eyes with the car keys jingling in the ignition, seeing there was a car rental tag hanging off of them. To then have Jordan ask the man how long he’s been a taxi driver. In which he responds, 3 hours. Jordan and I look at each other and bust out in laughter along with the driver himself. Understanding that the man is probably just trying to make a living, (he was very nice and taught us a great deal about the culture, language, people, etc.) I still wanted to make sure he was taking us where he said he was going to. Luckily we had downloaded an amazing app called maps.me that allows you to download a country’s entire road system and its amenities for use offline. So I plugged in where we were going and tracked our route the entire way, just to make sure he was really taking us where he said he would.
Arriving in Ubud about an hour later, we explored the road the Grand Palace was on and found the place we were staying with great ease. Ubud itself is a popular, but secluded area located near the southeast center of Bali. It’s known for its many rice terraces, and became very popular from the movie Eat, Pray, Love. Many people now visit here to awaken a more spiritual side of themselves.
We stayed at Ketut’s Place, a homestay which featured about 15 guest suites on the grounds of their own house. The grounds were beautifully decorated with plants, craftsman architecture and the essence of the hindu culture everywhere. Our room backed up to “rainforest” type greenery and we had a massive deck overlooking it all.
Most of the places for rent in Ubud serve a complimentary breakfast as part of your stay. Ours, at Ketut’s place was amazing! Each day you walk up to reception and choose from the menu, what you’d like for breakfast the next morning and what time. Our favorite quickly became the banana pancake. unlike any pancake we’ve ever had, they were more like flap jacks with chunks of fresh banana in every bite.
Our first full day we decided to head to the Monkey Palace. An outdoor forest type place with beautiful architecture and wild monkeys EVERYWHERE. Of course you can feed them, if you purchase bananas, but beware of anything you have in your hands because it WILL be taken by the monkeys. We witnessed a few people get their water bottles stolen as well as some peoples shoes. We even witnessed some of the monkeys jumping on people to get in their bags, which of course contained food. Jordan decided he wanted to feed the monkeys. So we bought a small bundle of bananas and let the fun begin. We quickly learned ONLY the big monkeys get the bananas of their choice and the hiss at the smaller ones if they go for them. Jordan really wanted to have the baby monkeys crawl up on him to feed, but one of the big ones hustled right up to jordan’s shoulders, taking the banana then taking a seat to wait for more.
After the monkey palace we headed back towards our place while visiting some shopping along the way and grabbing our first experience of balinese food.
Later that same night we joined a balinese dinner put on by our hosts. We spent about an hour learning about the balinese culture to then be served with a buffet of balinese food to try. Our favorite being this concoction of green beans, spices, some meat looking stuff and some crispy onions one top. It was delicious.
