Ubud Central

I woke pretty early and was hungry but breakfast didn’t start until 7am so I kept trying to get back to sleep but gave up at 6.45am. It wasn’t hot yet so I did a 20 minute workout then jumped into the pool - soooo good! By then Brad was up and joined me for a quick swim then we went to breakfast.

Brad went with Indonesian again but got Mei Gorang this time which is noodles instead of rice. I went with Bircher muesli which was really, really good and so filling.

We’d decided to get transport into Ubud today to check it out but when we got back to the villa it was too tempting to do some more chilling so we looked up some places to go and after that hard work I laid on the couch for a morning nanna nap. And I feel that I can legitimately do that now that I have a grandson, even if it is only at 9am!

So after a very relaxed morning of reading, sunning and swimming we finally got ourselves moving at some stage around lunchtime. It took quite a while to get there, maybe half an hour or so and as soon as we got out of the car we noticed how much hotter it was compared to where we’d come from - I think we were quite a bit higher which definitely made a difference.

The place was buzzing with tourists from all corners of the world, many of them on motorbikes. We just wandered through the streets, window shopping as I couldn’t be bothered doing any shopping and Brad certainly isn’t in any hurry to shop. Them place was nothing like I remembered from last time we were here 20 years ago. There was a mixture of clothing and jewellery boutiques, homewares, street stalls, restaurants and cafes. After a fair bit of walking we stopped at a cafe for a beer then moved on a little which seemed to take us into a health and well-being area.

I know Ubud is famous for its spiritual, health and well-being retreats but it wasn’t something we were too interested in being part of. The next place we stopped had an upstairs dining area so we went up there for a cocktail. It was some passion fruit, pineapple, mint thing that was really nice but very strong and it went to my head. We moved on again after that which I was happy about as everyone in there seemed to be part of the health and well-being movement and I felt like I was surrounded by a bunch of rich hippies.

We had ended up in the small backstreets and found our way back to the main street and stopped at a cafe for a beer so we could use the toilet. I have to say that I’ve been really impressed with the toilet facilities. Last time we were here they were always in a very unclean condition and were all Asian squat toilets. Nowadays they are all Western toilets that are nice and clean and have hand soap dispensers.

As we walked we came across the market and I got stuck at a dream catchers stall as I wanted everything. I hate bartering but it’s a necessity if you want to buy anything. Brad got involved at the start then walked off and left me. I really didn’t want to be doing it but really wanted to buy the two I had chosen. When I finally agreed on a price I only had enough money to get one. I caught up with Brad and he said he walked off so that the guy would drop the price more but I really can’t be bothered with it all.

We did one last cocktail stop after that and I needed food so we ordered some spring rolls to keep us going as we had other plans to eat at - and some many of the food places serve majority Western food which we weren’t interested in. By then we were done so went to the cab rank and found someone to drive us to a restaurant Brad had found online and wanted to try. It ended up being a fair bit out of central Ubud and was like a garden cafe, covered in greenery but all alfresco and overlooking rice fields - it was beautiful and really nice to be eating somewhere with a menu full of local dishes.

Brad has been trying to speak a bit of the local tongue - just the basics like “my name is”, “thank you”, etc and he was testing a few words on the staff who were very friendly and happy to help him out. They organised a cab for us and we got to talking to the driver and arranged for him to pick us up tomorrow to go to Legian. We asked about local food and he was telling us about suckling pig being a local specialty so we were keen to try it and he agreed to take us somewhere local to eat it tomorrow.

I was really tired and sporting a headache after the big day out (and probably due to the drinks), so I had a shower and called it a real early night.Read more