It is difficult to find the words to describe Ubud. Essentially, it is a small town comprised of a few streets lined with uniquely designed cafes, restaurants, art galleries and shops selling the coolest and most colourful clothes and bags ever. The town is actually surrounded by forest and so you will find yourself walking in streets with trees hanging low over your head, or walking over bridges above small ravines. The outskirts of Ubud is just beautiful, lush, green rice paddies. Scattered around everywhere you find simple yet beautiful Hindu temples and devout locals who give their daily offering- a banana leaf with flowers and incense- making the place even smell good. And that’s Ubud for you: green, healthy (everything seems to be organic), natural, chic, happy and hippyish.
We were mesmerized and infatuated with the place within a few hours. On our first day we went to visit Green School as we knew that a Maltese friend of ours, Maria, worked there. At the risk of sounding like a bimbo, discovering this school was a completely OMG moment. The school is literally like a campus made up of different buildings, built entirely out of bamboo. As the name implies, the school is completely environmentally friendly and this is evident not only in the architecture but also in the curriculum. Maria gave us a tour of this fascinating place and (never in my life did I think I would ever say this) we both ended up wishing we were kids again back at school- but only at this school.
When we got to our guesthouse, we discovered a little surprise in our bathroom. I opened the door to find a chicken on our toilet seat. No, that’s not a metaphor. Our bamboo bungalow was towards the back of the guesthouse and overlooked a rice paddy with lots of chicken. Since our bathroom window didn’t have glass covering it, the chicken manage to accidentally (or perhaps purposely) squeeze into the gap. Marc and the farmer from next door managed to catch and release it back into the field and only after did we realise that it had literally shat in our toilet. I doubt many people in the world get to say that a chicken crapped in their toilet, but I do.
Anyway, the next three days we enjoyed taking the beauty of Ubud all in, as well as enjoying some amazing fresh and healthy meals. We visited the famous Monkey forest, where Marc was befriended by a baby monkey who jumped on his shoulder and refused to jump off. On one of the evenings we met Maria at an event in which different groups of people spoke about environmental issues and what needs to be done about them. The most inspiring of all was actually given by two young girls, less than 13 years old both from Green School who started a campaign which aims to completely ban the use of plastic bags all over Bali.
A house in the middle of the lush rice paddies around Ubud
On the 3rd day we decided to do some sight seeing, mainly just visiting two famous temples in the area. So we set off for Kuil Gunung Kawi, a temple supposedly surrounded by rice paddies. After following google maps into some village road, we asked some locals where the temple was. They told us to park there and walk down the rice paddy to reach the temple. A group of around 6 local boys, no more than 12 years old, took on the role of guides for us and led us down through a passage way that led onto a very flooded rice paddy. We walked along the ledge as the pathway was actually flooded with water and had become a sort of river, and followed the boys for about 10 minutes down this ledge adjacent to the paddy, balancing ourselves carefully. After crossing through a muddy strip of rice paddy we eventually asked the boys how far away it was, making us realise that we had actually come the wrong way and had to cross through and jump down and over several layers of paddies to get to this temple. It seemed like quite a mission and so we turned back to the jeep and after a 5 minute drive we found ourselves in front of the actual entrance to the temple just 15 minutes before closing time.
We had almost made it. All we had to do was get out of the car, lock, walk to the entrance, pay for our ticket (some of the better known temples are quite commercial) and enter. We got as far as getting out of the car, and locking, but that’s it. We had gotten into the habit of locking the lazy way by just pushing down the lock and slamming the door. Nothing wrong with that, right? Wrong. You run the risk of accidentally leaving your keys in the car when you slam the door, therefore locking yours keys inside. I think you get where I’m going with this. Just to be clear, entirely Marc’s fault. He put his keys in his bag and then changed bag, forgetting to transfer the keys. He realised the second he slammed the door. As if just to tease us, my door hadn’t closed properly but was still locked, so we were trying to force it open when a local woman noticed what was going on and eventually we managed to call a “mechanic”. Just when we were about to try break in with a borrowed hanger, he arrived with the appropriate tools. By this time, 5pm had come and gone so our attempt to visit Gunung Kawi was officially a complete fail.
We still had about half an hour to visit another temple in the vicinity, Tirta Empul, and so we made our way there. This temple is famous for its holy springs, where the devout enter a pool and proceed towards a sort of personal cleansing ritual. This ritual includes 3 offerings, moving from stage to stage through the pool, washing their head and drinking from the holy water gushing into the pool. What Marc and I found so fascinating about this was that each statue in every stage had a Swastika sign, a symbol that for us Europeans is associated with Nazism. We realised that, just like many other things in the world, the original meaning of the Swastika must have been good and pure. We were proven right after asking a local who explained that it represents the creator god Brahma and symbolising a balanced life.
On our final day we decided to take it easy and went for a walk on a pathway through lush green rice paddies, enjoyed a healthy lunch at a popular cafe in the middle of these paddies then we got a Balinese massage to the sound of birds and nature and after enjoyed a bottle of Balinese wine at another open air cafe in the middle of the rice paddies. A perfect day. We ended it in style by meeting Maria at Bambu Indah, a beautiful, luxurious and fascinating hotel, owned by the same owner of Green School with the same concept: all rooms and huts completely built out of bamboo. Simply breathtaking. And the food was amazing too.
All in all, although we had been told from before that Ubud was the highlight of Bali, I must admit, it far exceeded our expectations. The whole place was just so lush, green, cultural, spiritual and relaxing. You must definitiely visit Ubud at least one time in your life.
-Vanessa-
Marc and Van Explore 