Ubud's Art, Culture and Landscapes (Indonesia)

The drive to Ubud was easy and pretty quick, we took advantage of the ride to sneak in some napping before arriving.  We were dropped off in the center of town, and had to walk about 20 minutes in the heat to our hostel.  The hostel was surprisingly nice.  It looked like a huge house, recently built, in the owner’s backyard.  There was a pool, common area with tables, chairs, and beanbag lounges.  We checked into our dorm room and hopped in the pool to cool down.  The day was mostly done, so we relaxed and grabbed a good dinner just down the road, before a little homework for the trip and bed.

We woke early the next day, to enjoy our free breakfast!  Unfortunately, the breakfast was less than impressive.  It consisted of a few small bowls of fruit, and some sort of green gelatinous substance, which I believe is called klepon, and made from palm sugar, and getuk and cenil, both also consisting of palm sugar and somewhat squishy, and all three traditional for Indonesian breakfast.  There was barely enough for about ten people, so anyone that came 20 minutes after the bowls had been served, were out of luck.  Needless to say, we ate as much as we could, and decided on a more filling breakfast later in the morning.  We opted to rent a couple mopeds from the hostel for the day to get around Ubud.  After setting up a game plan and packing our day bags, we set out for the countryside.  I am not comfortable driving a moped, anything on two wheels is two too few for me, so I was the passenger.  Bernard wasn’t particularly comfortable driving a moped either, but he was a fast learner.  As we started out of town, we pulled into a small restaurant and picked up our second breakfast and some coffee.  Our first tourist attraction was Goa Gajah, or Elephant cave, which was a sanctuary built in the 9^th century.  We made it in before most of the tour groups, which was nice, and received complimentary sarong covers; men and women are not allowed to wear shorts into the sanctuary.  The grounds were quite large, with two pools of water for bathing, fed by statues, and different sectioned off area with figures of gods.  The main sanctuary entrance was a stone carved face with a gaping mouth, through which you walked to enter the cave.  Inside, there were pockets in the cave walls where offerings and incense were placed.  We walked through the different sections and temples, with the odd attendant trying to coax us into donating money.  The area seemed to incorporate nature into each section, with huge trees providing shade over pools of water with lilli pads. We were pointed to a “different temple” along a small path leading out the back way of the grounds, which we attempted to follow, but ended up getting kind of lost and dead ending at a river.  We did think there was a possible temple, which looked like it was built into the side of a cliff, but we couldn’t cross the rapid flowing river, so we gave up, heading back into Goa Gajah.  Our next stop around Ubud was up through the Tegalalang rice paddies, miles of artisan stores with small and huge stone carvings of Buddha, beautifully crafted wood furniture, and traditional art stores.  About 40 minutes out, we arrived at Pura Gunung Kawi, a Hindu temple.  The grounds were not quite as large as Goa Gajah, but very interesting and beautiful. 

Again, there were the bathing pools, one for women, one for men, fountains, ponds and differently sectioned off areas for offerings.  We walked around, admiring all of the intricate carvings and statues, and witnessing people in prayer. 

 

After a while, we started the drive back to Ubud, stopping in the center of town to grab some lunch and walk around.  Ubud is teeming with locals and tourists.  It used to be a small quiet town, full of art and culture, but it has now become a staple destination for anyone traveling to Bali.  Our first areas on Bali, Sanur and Kuta, were overpopulated with tourists from around the globe, mostly just wanting to party, but Ubud seemed to focus much more on history, art, and culture.  We stopped into the Ubud Palace, which used to house the King of Ubud, and still has some of the former King’s descendants.  While at the palace, we picked up some tickets for that evening to see a traditional Legong dance performance.  We walked through the market, checked out the tourist office, and meandered over to the Water Palace, which housed a large Hindu temple, flanked by two ponds with blooming lotus flowers. 

 
After another bite, we drove over to the Sacred Monkey Forest, which was a monkey sanctuary and Hindu temple complex.  Hundreds of monkeys live in the forest and are fed by park staff; due to the thousands of visitors a year, the monkeys have lost all fear of humans.  I was a bit freaked out beforehand, because monkeys have been known to attack people that have the slightest trace of food on them, so I tried to make sure I didn’t have any crumbs in my bag or in my pockets (I often carry bars or snacks for long touristy days).  You can pay for a monkey to climb up you to a banana you hold above your head, and it’s also been reported that some people will train monkeys to rob things from your bag and then run off.  There were monkeys everywhere, even before we entered the park; they were just hanging out on the side of the road.  I saw one monkey run up to a man in the parking lot and latch onto his leg (obviously freaking out the man).  When we entered, you could walk right up to one, without it running away. 
Their interaction with one another was so interesting also.  The older monkeys, would sit, lounge, and eat, while the younger monkeys horsed around, until the older monkeys got tired of their shenanigans, and the baby monkeys would attempt the same activities as their adolescent counter parts, only to fall short and stumble.  Man they were cute!  The temple complex is very large and lush with forestry and a ravine that winds its way throughout.   We spent about an hour walking the grounds and getting up close to the monkeys.  After our monkey encounter, we headed back to the hostel, hung out in the pool, and relaxed until it was time for our show!  Bernard didn’t have much interest in seeing the dance, so he hadn’t bought a ticket.  We drove back to the Ubud Palace, and got floor seats right in front of the stage.  The lights came on to show musicians on either side of the stage playing some instruments I had never seen or heard before.  Initially, the music sounded uncoordinated and frantic with no beat, but after a bit I understood the sound better, and it was more pleasant.  The show was very interesting, but a bit difficult to follow the plot.  The dance itself focuses on small intricate foot work, controlled finger and hand movements and facial expressions.  Often a dancer would be totally still, with only quivering fingers, pursed lips, and wide open eyes, which darted back and forth. 

Surprisingly, there was one man dressed as a woman, performing the same dances as them.  At first, I had no idea what was going on, the music was chaotic and the dance seemed to lack actual dancing, but as I continued to watch, I found it pretty fascinating and completely unique to anything I had seen before!  When the show ended, we grabbed a bit of dinner before heading back to the hostel for the night.

The next morning, we again had the confusing and minimal breakfast, and rented bikes.  We set out early to Jatiluwih, an area occupied by large stretches of beautiful rice paddies, and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site a few decades ago.  We drove out of the hostel, and within 1 minute, lost Bernard.  When we turned around to go back for him, we found him on the side of the road, having been literally bucked off of his moped, when the engine failed as we accelerated out onto the main road.  I gotta hand it to the guy, had I been driving, that would have been the end of my biking career, but he walked over to the hostel owner, switched the bike out for a new one, and got right back on.  We used Google to map out our route, which seemed pretty straight forward, until about an hour into it, when we found ourselves riding through walking trails, people’s backyards, and completely random non-roads; I have no idea how Google put that one together.  We finally arrived at Jatiluwih, to see the green tiers of paddies for as far as the eye could see.  The rice sprouts hadn’t popped up yet, so the pools reflected the palm trees around and the open blue sky above.  We walked through the fields a bit, getting to see the irrigation system and little rice-lings up close.  On our way out, Bernard fell off the bike again, so we decided to just take a rest at a café and order some sugared up coffees.  Several hours on a bike gets very tiring (sore back, sore butt etc), so it was nice to sit in a different stance for a bit.  Once we rejuvenated ourselves, we got on the bikes and made our way to Ubud.  Because the initial route was so tumultuous, and Bernard was having a bit of a tougher time, I planned a different route and crossed my fingers that the roads were paved.  The route was in fact, much easier on the way back.  However, about 40 minutes outside of Ubud, we made a right hand turn, and when I looked back to make sure Bernard followed, I couldn’t find him anywhere.  We waited a bit, thinking he might have gotten stuck at the turn, we drove back, up and down the streets, and realized, we had lost Bernard!  After about 20 minutes of searching, we decided to continue on, thinking maybe he had corrected himself and was on the right rode, and we might catch up with him.  It didn’t take long to realize Bernard was nowhere to be found.  This would not have been a huge problem, except that he had no map.  We made our way back to the hostel as quickly as possible, assuming he might stop at a place with wifi and try to contact us.  When we arrived and checked, he had in fact reached out, and said he was fine and would slowly make his way back.  Hours later, he showed up in one piece.  He had initially actually forgotten the name of Ubud, and then had to basically just stop every 10-20 minutes to ask for directions.  I have no idea how he did it, because the route had about 100 turns through small backroads, but he did make it!  We all hung out in the pool for a bit before walking out for dinner at some random place that was huge, but completely empty.  The food was really great, and we stuffed ourselves before getting caught in heavy rain on the way back to the hostel for bed.
We took the next day especially easy.  After another less-than-filling breakfast, I went into the center of the city, to check out Puri Lukisan Museum of traditional Balinese art and wood carvings.  The museum was divided into different intricately designed buildings, mostly containing Hindi art.  After the museum, I headed out for a little R & R.  According to every travel website, one of the things to do in Ubud is indulge in a massage!  I like to be a very prudent and thorough tourist, so of course I had to go!  For about $35, I got an hour long facial and an hour long Thai massage!!  I came out of the room feeling like I had just woken up from a coma!  Thankfully, Jared had come to pick me up on the moped, so I didn’t have to stumble home.  I ate some lunch at the restaurant right outside the hostel, and then we relaxed a bit by the pool again.  We were hoping to catch another dance that night, but the rain set in pretty early, and we didn’t want to drive in rain, so we ended up eating closely to the hostel and just heading to bed early.

The next morning, I had signed Jared and me up for a cooking class!  That was another thing listed as a “must do” on travel websites.  Early, we drove over to Casa Luna Cooking School, and joined about 15 other people taking the class.  We sat and had some coffee and SHOCKINGLY amazing pastries!  So good!  The first part of the morning was a tour through the local market.  We had a guide who showed us all the different local fruits, highly detailed and designed knives and machetes, and local ingredients, like pure palm sugar.  Apparently, there are two markets during the day.  The first is cheap, opens at about 6am and ends a few hours later for locals.  The second starts in the afternoon, is geared for tourists, and costs a lot more for the exact same items.  We bought some fruits, of which we had never seen or heard, big, small, spikey, smooth, anything.  After our market tour, we walked back to the cooking school and met our instructor, Janet, an Australian chef who had lived for years in Indonesia and fallen in love with the food.  She introduced us to the basic ingredients involved in most Indonesian dishes, like red chilies, turmeric, ginger, shallots etc, which we all started finely chopping and preparing into dishes in appropriate portions.  Once everything was either sliced or minced according to her direction, we started kneading all the ingredients together in a mortar and pestle. 

We were such babies, we all had to switch mixers, because our arms got tired.  People apparently do that for hours every day!  It’s hard work!  Anyway, finally, the ingredients came together and the pastes were finished, at which point she helped us prepare the easy parts, cooking fish, chicken, tofu and mixing raw salads.  In the end, we all feasted on our hard work, and it was great!  I have absolutely no idea how to recreate those dishes, but I did receive a small cookbook, so hopefully at some point in the future I will be able to refer back to it!  I had a grand old time, Jared less so, but I think he’s less interested in cooking than I am (he was the person that boiled up an entire box of pasta a squeezed plain tomato paste from a tube onto it)!  The class lasted into the early afternoon, and after eating enough to feed a small Indonesian family, we headed back to the hostel, to spend the rest of the afternoon planning for our next destinations and relaxing by the pool.  I think Ubud was probably one of my favorite places in Indonesia.  There is so much to experience there both in the city and around, with tons of museums, art shows, dances, and temples around every corner.  We got a small glimpse into it, and it is a destination I would highly recommend!