The day after our trip back to Dreamland we decided to head up to Ubud because everyone that has ever been to Bali has told us that our trip would not be complete without going there. We had a driver pick us up (Drew, Leilani and myself) early in the morning and we started to make the trek up. We hadn't decided if we were going just for the day or if we wanted to stay the night so we packed a bag just in case we decided to get a hotel. The drive was about an hour and we had the driver drop us off first at the monkey forest. When we arrived I was shocked at how many monkeys were in the streets outside of the entrance. We were told not to bring any food in so we started arranging our bags to hide Leilani's crackers in her backpack but before we were able to get the bags in a Monkey charged her and she was forced to throw her lunch snack at them. Once in the Monkey forest we couldn't walk without stepping on a monkey. They were everywhere! We learned that they have vaccinated most of the monkeys from rabies and that as long as you don't have food or do anything stupid they will not attack you. Apparently, wild animals love us as geckos are always landing on me and a monkey crawled up drew's leg while he was not looking and needless to say Drew was quite frightened which made the locals in the forest laugh. We spent a few hours in the forest and took thousands of photos of monkeys, some of which are below.
After the forest we walked around Ubud for a while and stopped and went in search of a well known restaurant that serves Babi Guling (pork over rice). We found the restaurant and it was delicious and in a great setting over looking the forest. The only complaint I have about the food which is a first world problem is that everything is still served with the fat and bones which I cannot seem to get used to. After lunch we were rejuvenated and went and checked out the Bali Market. We were a little disappointed by the market as it looks like every other market in Bali and sells the same crap that the locals on the beach try to sell. I had heard at some point the market would be life changing but I think it lost a lot of its luster so we spent only a little time there and decided to go check out the local rice fields which unlike the market were better than expected. A local walked us through his rice fields that were owned by his family for 300 years. He sold us a coconut which we didn't want but it was only a dollar and he (Wyan) was nice enough to show us his fields and how it works and when they harvest. He was also a thin guy that told us he and his family eat rice three times a day, 365 days a year so I figured we could part with a dollar. The rice fields were peaceful and after Wyan pointed us on our way the only people we came across were some local lost boys fishing in the ponds near the fields. It took us an hour to walk through the rice fields which once we completed we treated ourselves to some ice cream. (On a side note, two eventful things did happen on our walk: 1. Leiliani fell into a rice field and started to sink in it like quicksand and 2. I almost walked into a spider web and the spider was about the size of my face and could have wrapped me in his web and eaten me for lunch.
After spending about 8 hours walking through the city of Ubud we decided not to spend money on a hotel and decided to cab back to our place as we had seen everything we came to see. Ubud was my favorite part of Bali so far but I am a beach kid at heart and couldn't wait to jump in the Bali Sea/Indian Ocean to rinse off all the sweat from lugging around my backpack all day that I didn't need to bring. For now I will leave you with photos of us doing back flips at sunset in the water. Our next trip is to Tanoh Lot and Drew will post photos in a few days and we still have not decided if we are going to go to the Gili Islands or not but if we do those will be in our next photos as well. Until then....
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