After our four full nights on the Gili Islands, we were safety in our minibus on the way to Ubud. We had to have a bit more of a plan for the days here, as we decided to book our flight from Denpasar to Melbourne on Christmas day (we were currently heading to Ubud on the 18th December). It’s mad how even writing this the time has flown and I feel we had done so much but we still had so much more to see and do! Our flight to Melbourne was at two am again, gotta keep the costs down kids: fly on the holidays and fly at the most horrific times. We had six nights then really to play with.
At Ubud we stayed in another booking.com special: Kamera Bungalows, beautiful and so cheap. Twelve pounds for two nights in our own private twin room. Wonderful. We organised the Mount Batur sunrise hike for the next morning which made that day about a three am start. I think we were just getting used to this by now; if we weren’t out until this time, we were waking up for an activity at this time. You need to make the most of these days. After we had our second breakfast of the day and a well deserved nap, it was time to take a stroll around Ubud. We walked down into the Monkey Sanctuary which was interesting, I mean it was a stunning place. Hanging vines from all the trees, stone bridges that were covered in green moss as they had been stationed there for thousands of years, you could walk into different parts of the derelict ruins into the depth of the jungle. It was as though you were in the 2019 remake of The Jungle Book. Even the monkeys were like the devil children in that film. Warning to you. No plastic bags, no loose items, no water bottles. Just go there with just yourselves, or a rucksack but keep it closed, that’s it. We were told a story of a man whose expensive camera was taken into the jungle and never to be seen again. I’m not sure if travel insurance will cover you for ‘loss of item due to Monkeys’, who knows?
Ubud is one of the areas of Bali which is not as well-known. I suppose it is now, but what I am trying to say is that it is authentic Bali. No pub street seven dollar buffet type of place but just calm and traditional. Food up here was amazing, the best in Bali we both thought. The town is quite large but doesn’t seem it and not modern with any high rises. It just slots straight into the Jungle. There are a few hotels just outside of Ubud, for example the Alila Ubud, but you would have to get a tuk-tuk into the centre of town each time you wanted to eat. So even though I can imagine that being that far from the busier area of Ubud would be a paradise in itself, I would perhaps leave that for a second visit. Or stay in two hotels: one in the centre and one in the valley just outside. Your choice.
Lovina was next on the agenda and when looking at a map it’s basically the north point of Bali. Another guesthouse here: Bayu Mantra Bungalows. This is a quiet place up here and there isn’t a huge amount going on. A lot of locals live up here, I guess that’s to get away from all the tourists down south, I don’t blame them. We can be a pain at the best of times. We hired mopeds to explore the area and by nature had to go see the ‘Pura Ulun Danu Beratan’, you know the one? Don’t worry I did that to throw you off. I can’t even pronounce it without almost spelling the whole thing out. It’s basically that temple on the lake which is showed in most images when you just Google ‘Bali’. It was actually one of those places which looks better in the photos, still amazing to see though, we got some great pictures but full of tourists, coaches of tourists to be more precise. It was the ride there we enjoyed the most though, up through the valleys with the stunning rice fields laying across the mountainsides. We thought we were professionals on the mopeds now. Until this journey on the way back when we both come off up the mountains. Both ok, don’t worry, after we checked there wasn’t any broken bones it was time to just laugh it off at how ridiculous we were. It was only moments before we had both said to each other at lunch that we were getting the hang of the peds. One of those ‘spoke too soon’ scenarios. For such a quite place we ended up spending three nights, I think we also enjoyed being away from the backpackers at this point to. At one with the locals.
Seminyak was the finale of Bali, Ucix Studio put us up perfectly in the centre of the area for us to enjoy the nightlife, beach and bars. The Seminyak beach is huge, a long stretch which curves up from Kuta to Canguu, the beach itself wasn’t the best; it had a lot of rubbish on it which was a shame. I guess this had either been washed in from the sea or just from people deciding they couldn’t be bothered to walk to the nearest trash can. It was pretty windy as well, but we found a pool bar with it’s own shielded spot for us to just have a few relaxing last twenty-four hours.
The good factor for the wind meant the waves where good for surfing, I had surfed before (not seriously or anything) but I could get onto the board, after a few, or twenty odd, attempts. You can give it go in this area or you can head to the very south of the island where they had more private beaches that supposedly only the keen surfers knew about. These beaches apparently are a lot better kept as well.
Of course being our last couple nights in Asia we couldn’t not have a couple of fun nights out while we were here. We knew we would return to Asia before the end of the whole trip though. It wasn’t a goodbye forever.
LEAH HANCOX 