Ubud

We arrived in Ubud in the early afternoon. After a short stop at the tourist office we went straight to the Palace and markets. Julia got herself a pretty new hat. We had booked a night at Ojek's Homestay which we thought meant that we stay with the family but it was more like an ordinary hotel. The Town had a completely different feeling than Kuta but they share the crazy traffic. Of course there are the normal markets but here are also more traditional and innovative storefronts.
It's also known as Bali's cultural heart with many artists. So we checked on performances of the traditional balinese dances in the evening and we found one that was named something like 'Dance and fire'. The performance was in a temple with two rows of chairs overlooking a round plaza. The first ones to come out were a group of about 60 men who sat down around the circle and started singing. After some time female dancers and other figures joined and narrated a classic balinese tale. It was an exciting show ending with a guy in some kind of horse costume kicking around glowing wood. Afterwards we wanted to watch the World Cup match but didn't find a bar and the match wasn't too interesting anyways. So we just got ourselves some beer and relaxed at the hotel.
We got up at 6 in the morning to go trek the Campuhan Ridge Walk to see the sunrise over the rice terraces. It was about 4km one way on a stoney path. Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy and the rice terraces were tiny ;) But we still enjoyed a bit of time outside of the town... After waiting for 45 minutes we took the bus to Amed.Baca selengkapnya