Ubud

We spent two nights in Ubud – Bali’s cultural capital. First impressions were that it was pretty chilled out and geared up for trendy, arty types, with quite a few modern fashion shops, art galleries and chic bars. It reminded me a bit of Luang Prabang in Laos.

On our first afternoon we strolled down the length of the one of the gallery-lined streets, finishing up at the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, where lots of cheeky macaques were to be found.

Early the next morning, after a sweaty night of swatting Dengue mosquitoes (the ones with the striped legs, we had learned) in our non-air-conditioned windowless box, we hired a scooter and set off to head up to the Batur Volcano area 35km to the north, along the way exploring the picturesque paddy fields for which the Ubud region is renowned.

We were getting a good feel for what a rainy season is all about by now. Rather than eternal drizzle (à la Cumbrian Winter), most of the day is sunny and hot, but there are always a few big grey clouds looming, each threatening a short, intense downpour. We managed to avoid getting soaked anyway.

This was my first time with an engine block between my legs for the best part of three years, so it was a bit of a wobbly start with my pillion passenger but it soon all came back to me. The driving here isn’t too crazy, but I very nearly took out an indecisive dog.

The scooter had a fuel tank about the size of my bladder, so we had to make frequent stops to top it up at the roadside stations where petrol is sold per litre in whatever leftover glass bottles are available.

We weren’t far from our destination of Kintamani (a town near the volcano) when the police pulled us over. We had helmets on so we were covered on that front, but we had left my international driving licence back at the hostel in Ubud town centre. After a tedious explanation as to the nature of the offence and differences between European and Indonesian law, we were offered a frank choice; accept a ticket and then have the hassle of paying £25 when we presented the licence at the station in Ubud, or – clearly the officers’ preferred option – bung them £5 cash and they would forget about the incident, and also ‘kindly’ allow us free passage on our return journey. We went for their preferred option only to get stopped about a mile later to cough up for a ‘tourist entrance fee’ to the area. The costs were starting to mount.

We finally made it to the Kintamani, a one-road town which runs along the crater rim. The views were spectacular.

We’d also read that there was a temple worth seeing so we scooted on up to that. Near the entrance we were harassed by women saying we had to rent their sarongs to enter the temple.

It smelt like a scam, and having now already visited numerous temples we had come prepared with long trousers and long sleeve shirts to cover ourselves, but this was the first time we’d seen insistence on renting a sarong. We asked about it at the ticket office and were told we’d need to both buy a ticket and separately rent a sarong. Having already felt like we’d been paying over the odds that day, the interior of this particular temple was promptly ditched from our itinerary.

We had planned to have lunch in Kintamani and found a place with a nice view. Surprise surprise, everything was four times the price found back in Ubud. Just two coffees then please, and at these prices I think you can take a photo of us too thank you very much.

On the road back to Ubud we managed to avoid any more encounters with the police – they must’ve hit their bribe quota for the day and gone home. We paused at a plantation where we were given a tour of the place and shown the various plants and their inhabitants.

Coffee beans

Vanilla

Cocoa

Fearsome hand-sized spider

Roasting coffee beans

We then sat down to sample a range of coffees. Most notable was ‘Luwak coffee’, where the coffee beans are fed to an Asian Palm Civet who promptly poops them out for roasting in the normal way. The beans partially ferment in its stomach, supposedly enriching the flavours. Me being more of a tea person, Marie is the resident coffee connoisseur and it got her thumbs up. We will now be carrying 100g of the stuff across several borders on our journey home. I’m sure it will be worth the haulage, even if just for the looks on a few unsuspecting guests’ faces once we’re home.

It’s hard to walk around Ubud in the evening without being approached by a tout wanting to sell you a ticket to a traditional Balinese dance, but we’d already pencilled in one of those for later in our trip so the touts didn’t have any luck with us. There did seem to be a wealth of choice on this front though. I also noticed that the traditional Balinese music, with its unique, slightly hypnotic sound, seemed to emanate from every corner after sundown.

We felt our two nights in Ubud were plenty to see the place and the surrounding area and we were glad we included it on our trip. You could spend more time relaxing here and soaking up the ambience if you wanted to.