Relaxing in Ubud, Bali

After 1,5 weeks of surfing daily I had exhausted my body and decided to see a little bit more of Bali than the beach and my bed. I packed my stuff and booked a local taxi to take me to Ubud. There was a lot of traffic in the beginning of our trip so it took around 2 hours to get there from Seminyak.

I had booked a stay The Wayan House, which is a Balinese owned hostel that has 22 beds all together. The rooms were either for 2 or for 4 persons. The family has created this beautiful hostel to their own backyard and it has the family's temple inside on the beautiful courtyard. It was easy to walk everywhere from this hostel, and the owners were very helpful with arranging rides and showing us around the local markets if we wanted to go further.

One day I roamed around Ubud and its small streets and boutiques. I ended up in the Campuhan Ridge walk, which is one of the best known small hikes in Ubud. It takes about 1 to 2 hours to walk the route and I saw many locals and tourists on the track.

On another day I walked a popular track that took me to see local rice fields - not the popular rice terrace ones, but fields beautiful in another way. This route was quiet and mid walk I met an old lady selling fresh fruits. I decided to buy some bananas and other fruits and she ran after me to gift me a mandarin on top of it all. The fruits in Bali are unbeatable. So fresh and delicious.

One morning I woke up in my hostel room with two new roommates. They were traveling together and were planning to rent a taxi for the day and asked if I wanted to join them. Together we could go around Ubud to see the local sites. I took the offer and went with them. Bali doesn't have a good public transport system which is why you have to use a taxi or a motorbike to get anywhere. Or a bicycle!

We started our day trip by going to the famous Tegallalang Rice Terraces. Tourists were guided by locals who took amazing pictures for a small tip. This was also one of the places you could hop on a Balinese swing, one of those you can see often in Instagram. It seemed cool, but we didn't do it as the price for a swing and a picture seemed a bit steep and we were fine just roaming the small pathways of the fields.

Next stop was at Pura Tirta Empul, a hindu temple where people purify themselves in the holy and pure spring waters. Tourists were allowed to do it as well, if you respected the rules and traditions of the ritual and didn't bother others. You also need to wear a sarong to be able to enter the temple area, but it is provided free at the gate. For purifying, people changed into a different kind of a sarong, that could be rented. Using a camera was forbidden by the ritual pools but below you can see the entrance to the bath area.

In the bath, you could find around 30 water pipes and people lining in the water to get to stand under the gushing water. The ritual was meant to be done in order and after the first pipe you would go to the next line. There were two spots that were not used, as they were only meant to be used to purify the deceased and not the living.

The temple area is quite large and takes about 30 minutes to an hour to walk through and see and learn about different spots.

The next temple was just a 10 minute drive away, the Candi Tebing Gunung Kawi, and if I remember correctly, our taxi driver called it the Rock Temple. Most likely because the multiple shrines are carved on to the rock walls. It was a steep walk down to the valley, and a bit of a climb back up. Once again, we were given sarongs to wear at the gate to the temple area.

Next stop was lunch. We were dropped at a balinese restaurant and I got myself a chicken noodle soup. At this point I will also mention my case of the infamous Bali belly. Unfortunately, I wasn't spared from it. It began already after my first day of surfing, and I did suffer from it all the way nearly to the end of my trip. It was very common among surfers since everyone spent so much time on the very dirty ocean water and most likely drank quite a lot of it as well. The surf instructors reminded us after every class to drink a lot of water to try to keep the balance in your belly.

Only few managed to do so, and it was a shame, since I really wanted to enjoy the foods around Bali as well. Although I was eating multiple heartburn pills every day, I also needed to avoid all the spicy food just to be able to enjoy sight seeing. This is why in Ubud I started with eating a lot of noodle soups and rice porridge to ease my tummy. I did notice it calming down at the end of my break from surfing.

If I remember correctly, the next stop was Goa Gajah, the Elephant Cave, which origins are not known but it has been suspected of been some sort of a sanctuary. Also the temple area has a lot of scary carvings, that were meant to scare away the evil spirits.

Our final stop was a waterfall, but the taxi driver apologised for the possibility of it not being very instagrammable (which was a word I saw the locals use many times in different sites. I even saw a tour called the most Instagrammable places of Bali). Apparently, usually the waterfall was clear blue and bright but since there had been a lot of rain and storm recently, the mud turned the water to brown. It was a great destination anyways. We ended up having drinks at the touristy bar next to the water fall and just enjoyed for a moment before heading back to our hostel.

I wasn't quite done with Ubud yet. I loved the restaurants it had to offer, and I got a tip from a friend back home to go to a Balinese Warung Biah Biah in the town centre. I am glad I took this offer since the food was amazing and I went back there a second time. I also went to Warung Siam (a Thai restaurant) and Sinssihwaro Korean BBQ (Unfortunately, nothing can beat the Korean BBQ's in Korea, but I had to try).

One evening our hostel owner took a bunch of us to the local night market. He said that he would make sure we would buy food only from the people who won't use any tap water, since no one wanted to worsen their Bali belly. The night market was amazing and I have not had as delicious dishes anywhere in Bali. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the dish in the first picture, but it was delicious and spicy (My tummy handled it)! The rest of the pictures are from the plates of my travel mates or from around the market. We also tried some shaved ice with different flavours and toppings.

One core memory from Ubud was going to see a legong, traditional Balinese dance performance that told a story of one maharaja. Classical legong dance is usually separated into seven different stories. The dances were slightly different from each other, and the facial expressions and dance movements were enchanting.

Ubud also has a big tourist destination, the Monkey Forest. I ended up seeing so many monkeys on the streets that I decided not to go to the forest. The monkeys on the streets were cheeky ones - stealing fruits from local's stalls and escaping through the rooftops. But they seemed to be loved by everyone nevertheless.

Ubud was a great destination to visit and stay for five days. I relaxed and enjoyed my time, and learned so much about Balinese culture.