Ubud, Bali

We were in Ubud for Valentine's Day and Bethany's birthday. We arrived on the 14th in the early afternoon, and walked to a cafe down some creekside walking paths. (It should be noted that we stayed in Penestaran, on a hill about ten minutes walk from downtown Ubud.) We arrived at the cafe, which was like any other but featured southern Indian food, and sat next to the only other occupied table, at which two men were discussing real estate deals. On the walk to the cafe, we passed workers on a creekside construction site. Oh, and all around our villa people were working on some new housing construction. On the way back from lunch, Adam wished a shopkeeper good afternoon and was asked if he was looking to buy a house. No, he wasn't.

Our general impression is that Ubud is experiencing a housing boom ["obviamente"] as westerners and other rich types move to Ubud to find themselves or live in harmony with nature or undertake spiritual healing. A creekside sign we passed read (paraphrased only slightly) "Two-bedroom for sale. Perfect for large family or yoga studio." You might remember Ubud as the town in which Elizabeth Gilbert finds her man and her senses in Eat, Pray, Love. She meets and starts sleeping with a Brazilian diamond dealer [Nigerian Yahoo scammer was rejected from the manuscript as too upstanding and honest], and meeting traditional healers to take their potions and talk over her problems (i.e., she got divorced).

Basically, if you sell ragweed but could convincingly explain that it contained only pure locally-sourced organic ingredients that had properties that ancient shamans knew about but that the western medical cabal was only beginning to rediscover for its healing properties ... you might look into hanging a shingle out in Ubud.

Also, there were plenty of art galleries. Woodcarving, batik, and silversmithing are local specialties. In fairness to Ubud, there are other adventures like bike riding and whitewater rafting right outside of town that we could have enjoyed. Sadly, we only were in town two days.

We went to a fantastic Balinese dance performance on Tuesday night with the troupe Semara Ratih, then stopped for dinner at a warung filled with locals. We enjoyed the show very much, and the food was pretty good and plenty spicy. The taxi (Indo: taksi) driver back to our villa was very friendly and chatty. In all, a good beginning to Ubud.

On Wednesday, for Bethany's birthday, she decided that we should take a batik class. We walked to town and showed up a tad bit late, sweating and panting, but the class had already been filled. (Sidenote: batik.) We decided to reserve a spot in the next day's class, and sat on the step chatting with the instructor/resident artist.

As we sat chatting, a student from the class walked up to the artist and said, "They said you could help me draw a whale. I have a friend who's focusing his healing practice on whales, and so wanted to make him a whale to focus on." [She may have said, "is focuing on whales in his healing..." or "is focusing on whales in his healing practice..." ] Instead of replying, "Please rearrange and re-select the English words you have just spoken so as to remove the complete nonsense," the artist helpfully traced a whale outline.

We rehydrated on advocado juice (usually made with chocolate in a smoothie-like drink), soda water, and lemonade before setting off for the Monkey Forest. In the Monkey Forest are protected groups of ... monkeys!

There are also some great temples that are rather over-the-top in a style unique to Balinese Hinduism.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Ubud, past every craft gallery imaginable. The town does have some wonderful temple architecture.

However, the heat once again became difficult, as the breeze at street level died around noon. We got lucky in finding an upstairs restaurant with cooling breezes and very good pizza (and passable nasi campur and poor salad). It's Black Beach, near Jl. Raya Ubud.

We luckily had our own pool at the villa, which helped fight the heat.

Birthday dinner was pretty bad. We went to a nearby hotel's restaurant, and sat down (as the only customers) amid construction noise. Someone in the back was using a power sander. We asked the waitress if he might stop until the end of our dinner, though we fully understood that the evening is a cool time of the day and optimal for work. The staff conversed for a good few minutes, and the sanding stopped.

Two minutes later, drilling commenced. We finished our cocktails and asked them to wrap our food so we could leave. We took our food home. Bethany's food was passable; Adam's was memorably described as "grilled tofu in black salt sauce."

We spent the next day at our batik class. Bethany, seen below hard at work, painted a beautiful array of flowers. Adam provided evidence for the argument that artistic skill isn't hereditary, and that perhaps the schools should have more art classes beyond the sixth grade. It was a seascape, or something.

Finishing batik early, we drove to the Bali airport on Thursday afternoon to begin our reintroduction to rich country living.