Ubud (Part 2)

The last two days in Ubud, Rico and I explored the greater Ubud area with our scooters 🛴 quite a bit and saw a lot of sights.

On Monday morning we went to Goa Gajah (the elephant temple) 🐘 and confidently ditched all attempts to be scammed - be it the attempt to sell us a sarong🥻to enter the temples (although they can be borrowed for free) or a „tour guide“ who wanted 20 US$ for showing us EVERYTHING of the rather straightforward temple 🛕 All in all we have probably been not more an hour there (including getting a blessing).
Our next stop was Puri Tirta Empul (the Holy Water temple) where we observed a lot of white people getting a green sarong in order to be able to bath 🛀 in the holy waters. For us the queue was simply too long and since we have been already blessed elsewhere that day, we didn’t go into the holy water. Instead, we walked around the beautiful area and came across the holy pond that easily contained at least 100 koi 🎏 which where wildly fighting for food that the tourists bought and fed to them. It was quite a spectacle.
Rico wanted to buy some silver bracelets as souvenirs 💍 for friends & family at home. That’s why we drove in the afternoon to the „Budha to Budha“ shop (meanwhile „Best of Budha“) in Ubud. Apparently, this is a huge thing in the Netherlands 🇳🇱 since there were only Dutch people … and me! 😂 The advantage of buying the bracelets here instead of Europe is, that the price is solely calculated based on the weight of the Silver - no extra cost (e. g. for shipping or customs or else). That way you pay only a third of the European prices!
Initially, we wanted to drive to the Tegenungan waterfall but if we wanted to be in time for our reservation of the Cocktail Bar / Restaurant 🍹 to observe the sunset and factoring in the time to get there we had only approx. one hour at the waterfall left. Besides, it is supposedly very touristy and we didn’t want to repeat our experience with Tegallalang rice terrace from the day before. So, we skipped the waterfall and instead went to the Villa Rico has rented to freshen up before watching the sunset at the Mandapa Ritz Carlton.
We had a bunch of cocktails 🍹 and Sushi 🍣 respectively Wagyu beef 🥩 for dinner while watching the sunset 🌅. Needless to say, that I spent more than 1 million IDR 🤑just that night. And Rico even more 😂 Nevertheless, the experience was worth the money. 😌
We called it an early night that day so that we could get up early and observe the sunrise 🌄 at mount Batur on the next day.

We met at 4 am in the morning and drove approximately an hour north through the dark. Luckily traffic is not busy at all at that time. But without the sun it was freezing cold. 🥶 Although I had a jumper and long trousers on, it was not really possible to go beyond 60 km/h without getting frostbites 😆 We did not do our homework and were quite surprised that the not so touristy lookout we wanted to visit was an hour further away than we thought. So, we had to improvise and while we were on our way to another lookout we saw the first red-ish colours of the sunrise behind Mt. Batur 🌋Luckily we were passing by a pretty formidable and empty pedestrian with a nice view at that moment. So, we decided to stay right there and watch the sunrise 🌄 from that spot. At the beginning everything seemed to be perfect but suddenly lots of clouds ☁️ moved in front of Mt. Batur. The beautiful colours made way for a lot of white and grey. Just in the moment when we were ready to accept defeat, the clouds partly disappeared again so that we stayed for another 15 min. and properly enjoyed the natural spectacle - certainly one of the nicest sunrises I have seen so far.
It was still early in the morning - 7am or so but it almost felt like lunchtime. We were hungry. So, we drove to a nearby cafe to have breakfast.
With a full belly 🫃we drove to the hot spring that was relatively close by. Rico has never been to a hot spring so far. So for him it seemed to be a great experience but I still had the one from Bandung (Java) as most recent comparison in mind and therefore I was a bit disappointed. ☹️ Don’t get me wrong - it was still relaxing to spend the time in multiple pools of varying temperatures and to enjoy the views but the experience from Bandung was simply better. That feeling might have been related to the relatively low temperatures 🌡️ that paled in comparison to the ones in Bandung. So, I advised Rico to go there and make that experience for himself, when he comes back to Indonesia 🇮🇩
2 hours later we left the hot springs again. It was only noon. I had now all possible situations on a scooter 🛴 - driving through heavy city traffic, driving on the highway & speedway, driving in the night, … I have learned the most through observing how Rico does it (he had much more practice than me and drove nearly everywhere on Lombok). I would say I am ready for the Indonesian drivers license 😂
After driving back to my hotel as well as lunch in Warung Gauri (the restaurant we regularly went to in the last days), it was time to also say goodbye to Rico (he will fly 🛫 back home to the Netherlands).

When you (Rico) read this, be sure that I am thankful for you being such a great travel buddy. I had much fun the last days and will keep that forever in good memory! 👍 Safe travels 🌎 and thanks for being my driving instructor 😅

After lunch, I returned the rented scooter. Since there was still time for a 1,5 hour long full body massage with coconut oil 🥥 This day was just one big treat 😅
In the afternoon I was picked up by my taxi 🚕 to Canggu. I got the contact details from Rico (and he got it from another Dutch guy - this is how things work here 😊).En savoir plus