Chillin’ in Bali – Part II

Ever since I read the book Eat Pray Love I’d wanted to go to Bali and more specifically to Ubud. I know, it sounds pretty lame to pick your vacation destination from a chick lit book, but I really was curious about what the small village perched up in the middle of rice paddies would be like.


And to be frank, I’m really glad I listened to my chick lit instincts.


Ubud is simply awesome… if Denpasar is the political and industrial capital of Bali, Ubud is definitely the cultural and artistic capital of Bali. The small village is wedged in between low slopes of green rice paddies and deep rivers coming down from the Bantur volcano up north of the island. Normally it would have taken us one hour to get from Nasa Dua to Ubud, but we asked our cab driver (yes, taxi’s are the easiest ways to get around the island in Bali) to stop at certain places along the road so that we could visit some of temples and sights. That is how we came to see the amazing Tanah Lot temple perched on a rocky island by the beach and the pretty Taman Ayun Mengwi temple with its 11 merus.

Tanah Lot - when the tide rises, the temple sits as a completely separate island!

Temples in Bali are pretty tricky to photograph -
they tend to be spread out over several different structures

By the time we got to Ubud it was late afternoon and so we set about to visit the village. Even though I hadn’t imagined it quite that way from the Eat Pray Love book, I was expecting to find it an animated place, and that’s exactly how Ubud feels. There is plenty to visit in town and nearby and the quality of the museums and antique galleries is quite good. There is also a very interesting handcrafts market downtown and several art galleries, good restaurants, shops and boutiques on the main streets of Ubud which makes it a place you can definitely stay in for while.

Ubud - Village wedged in between rice paddies and monkey jungle

These things announce a temple ceremony in the villages -
In Bali, there is always a temple ceremony going on somewhere

Street in Ubud

Main drag in Ubud

Hands down though, my favorite part about the village were the rice fields. We set out early the next morning and it turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip. We walked through the rice paddies for almost 6 hours and never got tired of it. Long strips of land covered in green, velvety, lush rice grass, little water canals running along each parcel, some even filled with ducks, beautiful palm trees on the side of the road and basically a non-stop feeling of nature and peace all around.

Long velvety rice paddies

Duckies enjoying a swim in drowned ride paddy

Hubby with all his gear

As if that wasn’t good enough, just when we were starting to feel hungry by midday we came across a little organic restaurant set up in the middle of the fields right on our path! The tables were set up under an open gazebo sort of structure and all faced the rice paddies. The food was delicious; quite honestly I’ve never really gotten into the whole “organic food” wave thing but I have to say, the lettuce in my salad that day definitely made me consider going “bio” as they call it here in France.



Needless to say, Hubby and I spent a very agreeable afternoon that day.


Fned.