Ubud is now famous because of Gilbert's novel, and I won't deny that I made it our first destination because of this. But I didn't quite go to Ubud for the same reasons as Gilbert. I simply wanted to see the beauty of it and have a great time. And that I did.
Downtown Ubud is a delightful experience with its many local shops, eateries and temples. I had read about this restaurant, Ibu Oka, that is famous for serving a fantastic suckling pig. What they do is roast, stuff and serve up parts of an entire pig for lunch. Having carnivorous tendencies, I planned for us to have lunch there. It did not disappoint! Daniel and I both ordered the specials, which are basically samplings of the different parts of the pig served alongside rice. Daniel claims it's the best meat he's ever had. We quenched our thirst with a Bintang (local beer) for the gentleman and a giant young coconut for me. To enhance the experience, while Daniel was paying for our lunch, I witnessed an entire pig being brought in on a tray for the next batch of orders. Yum!
After lunch, we visited the Ubud temple which is located directly across from the restaurant.
From there, we perused the tourist markets and headed down Monkey Forest road towards the popular Monkey Forest Sanctuary. The monkey forest was fun. Simply put, it's a forest with three major temples and a whole lot of macaques running around, interacting with tourists (basically just trying to steal their food) and playing (or fighting, sometimes it's hard to tell) with each other. I was too afraid to try and feed them, but it was really entertaining watching braver tourists wave bananas above their heads to get the monkeys to climb onto their shoulders. And the little baby macaques were just adorable! The scenery was also amazing, with its lush green trees and beautiful flowers. It all made for a really great time.
Of course all the eating and shopping and monkey-watching exhausted us, so we went back to our hotel that evening and had a refreshing dip in the pool. The hotel where we stayed, Bhanuswari Resort & Spa, is a couple minutes away from the heart of Ubud, but they arrange free transportation to and from the hotel so that was incredibly convenient. The hotel also has a beautiful property overlooking rice paddies. It is lush with coconut trees and beautiful flowers. We chose to have dinner there and the Balinese food was just incredible.
Overall, mostly everything about our stay in Ubud was magnificent. The food, the monkeys, the shops, the hotel-we loved it all. The only thing I had to complain about was all the bites that the mosquitoes of Ubud generously bestowed upon me. For some reason, Daniel received none. But the irritation of about ten mosquito bites is a small price to pay for the fantastic time we spent in Ubud. We were sad to leave after just an evening and a day, but we were excited to see what the next region, Candidasa, had in store for us!
