Kathleen
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia – March 10-17, 2016
Steve and I spend a lovely two or three nights in Ubud on our honeymoon trip in 2002. We got an amazing deal on a luxury resort because it was less than a month after the bombings and everyone cancelled their trips to Bali in fear. It was relaxing, amazing and I thought it was the greenest place on Earth.
Returning almost 15 years later, we decided to have a different kind of experience and save some money by booking a villa, where we could be on our own and make dinner, etc. Our villa was slightly out of town and had a small pool overlooking the jungle. The bedrooms were inside and had A/C but the rest of the villa (including the bathrooms) was open-air. It was a really neat experience, if not altogether luxurious – I know it sounds luxurious but the rather tired villa had a lot of issues and of course we had ants everywhere and fruit flies and etc. etc. That said, we enjoyed relaxing for 6 whole nights here. The longest we have been in one spot prior to Ubud on this trip was 4 nights, so we unpacked, bought some groceries and settled in.
Our first impression of Ubud was to be shocked at the volume of traffic and activity that far out-stripped our first trip. It is another place with mopeds everywhere and we needed to rent one to get back and forth to town and around. Honestly, it took us a couple of days to want to do anything other than go out to get groceries as driving on the narrow roads seemed a bit daunting. We were sure glad that we finally got around, though. It was lovely riding out of the city on the moped and into all the rice fields. Every view you get of the rice fields and the valleys lined with palm trees is stunning and you really do feel a bit as if you are in paradise. We saw a lovely 12th century temple out in the rice fields, had luch at a cafe overlooking the rice fields, climbed a volcano all the way to the crater, had monkeys crawl on us at the Monkey Park and enjoyed walking around Ubud doing a bit of shopping. All-in-all, we had a lovely time.