Bali - In and Around Ubud

After a relaxing seaside stay at the Hyatt, we moved to the more centrally situated town of Ubud. We used Ubud as a base for a couple of day trips to see some of the highlights of Bali. Our first day trip took us to the east of Ubud and started off at Taman Ujung (Taman water palace). The palace was built in 1909 for one of Bali’s former royal families. The gardens and grounds were just beautiful. 

Next stop was Tirta Gangga (a water palace and temple inspired by the sacred Ganges River in India). Despite the rainy day, this place was annoying packed with younger tourists posing for the perfect “instagram-worthy” shot, but Kevin magically erased them all. Technology does have some good uses!

We also went to Pura Goa Lawah (Bat Cave Temple). In Balinese Hindu culture, it’s respectful to wear proper clothes inside the sacred areas of the temple. Since we were wearing shorts, we were given sarongs to make sure our knees and legs were covered. As you might guess from the name, this 11th century temple was built around a cave that is inhabited by fruit bats. Luckily we visited during the day when they were sleeping!

It rained practically all morning so by the time we got to the instagram-famous Kanto Lampo waterfall we were not surprised to see it flowing at full tilt. You can swim and climb onto the rocks here, and we did see a girl in a red dress getting drenched by the cascade for a photoshoot, but we opted to stay dry. Also Kevin observed that the spring water feeding the falls was directed through an irrigation ditch. With all the rain runoff, we thought better safe than sorry. 

We next visited the Pura Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave Temple). In this case the name might be deceptive -- the elephant cave did not contain a herd of elephants. Instead, there was a statue of the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesha. A menacing face is carved around the entrance of the cave. Our awesome driver Putu took this selfie with us at the entrance. 

On our second day in Ubud we decided to explore a little bit on foot on our own. Our hotel was within a stone’s throw of the Sacred Monkey Forest, home to three temples and about 1500 monkeys. 

These monkeys seemed much better behaved than the ones at Uluwatu, although they still didn’t like people getting too close. (There’s always seems to be one idiot tourist who teases them or tries to grab them despite the many many signs saying not to). We found that if you were calm and didn’t make sudden movements they would stay in one place long enough to get a good photo. 

We loved just walking around the forest paths. With the jungle vines and stone carvings it felt like a set from Indiana Jones. 

There are three 14th century temples in the forest, but the main attraction for visitors is definitely the monkeys. I mean, come on…just look at this cute little guy!

Ubud also has a couple of other must-sees right in town, like the Ubud Water Palace (a temple for the goddess Saraswati). Leading up to the temple entrance is a picturesque lotus pond and bridge. 

Another must-do while in Ubud is to see a traditional Balinese dance performance at the palace. A different type of dance is performed each night; we happened to be in town on a Friday so we got tickets to the Legong Keraton and Barong show. The Legong dance is performed by three female dancers who act out a story using twisty arm movements, twitching their fingers and toes in intricate patterns while their eyes dart back and forth expressively. 

The Barong dance was more animated. A Barong is a supernatural lion-like monster that fights evil. Two performers manipulate the costume to the trance-like music played by the Gamalan orchestra (a cacophonous collection of drums, gongs, xylophones, and flutes). 

On our last full day in Ubud, we woke up to a monkey invasion at our hotel pool. Monkeys were tiptoeing across power lines and shimmying down the balconies to try to get some ripe dates from the palm tree next to the hotel pool. A worker had to come out with a slingshot to scare them off. This was not their first rodeo -- the monkeys took one look at the slingshot and skedaddled!

We hired Putu again to drive us to a few sites we hadn’t seen yet. We did a quick stop at some very touristy rice terraces. 

As far as we could tell, it was more dirt terrace than rice terrace, probably because they let tourists trek around and trample it down. The place seemed more geared towards photo-ops, with a big swing, a tandem bicycle zipline, and a weird human-sized bird nest. The swing and the zipline cost extra, so…bird’s nest it is! Have I mentioned what a good sport Kevin is?

We then moved on to Pura Tirta Empul (Holy Spring Temple). The temple was founded in the 10th century and is an important place where Balinese Hindus come to be purified by the sacred spring water. Anyone, even non-Hindus, can participate in the purification ritual.

We opted to stay dry and just explore the temple grounds, since we had a few other places we wanted to visit afterwards. 

Everywhere in Bali we have seen people placing little woven leaf boxes with small offerings, called “canang sari”. Twice daily, people put these at the threshold of their homes and businesses, on the dashboards of taxis, at the counters in shops and restaurants, and at shrines along the street. Basically these offerings are everywhere and you have to pay close attention to avoid stepping on them or accidentally kicking them over. The people place flowers, small sweets, rice, and incense in the canang sari as a way to honor the gods and show gratitude. Each item in the offering has a meaning. These were just a few of the offerings we saw at Tirta Empul. 

Our final temple of the day was the beautiful Pura Ulun Danu Beratan, a temple in the middle of Lake Bratan. Although not as old as some of the other temples we've visited (it was built in the mid-1600s) it was certainly one of the most scenic, with its views to the lake and mist-shrouded mountains behind it.

The location has been enlarged beyond the actual temple because they get so many tourists here -- there was a separate disney-like area with photo-op stations and props for instagrammers but we didn't really take any photos there. The temple itself was pretty enough for us!