Inside Ubud
We arrived in Ubud by taxi from Amed and we were greeted by the now famous Balinese traffic jams. Here you should be really patient when you take the car. The first thing we did was renting a scooter, to try to find a cheap guesthouse and to be outside of the city. We found easily our guesthouse and we spent the day to organise our next days and we discovered that renting a scooter was really essential because everything is pretty far from the other.
Les rizières face à notre guesthouse – Ricefield in front of our guesthouse.
If you want to have a day in Ubud we would advise you to start it very early to go to the market and enjoy the Balinese breakfast cakes. The place is full of life and has quickly plunged us into our Asian memories.
Temple juste en face du marché – Temple just in front of the market.
In addition to strolling in the city looking through shops windows (here everything is beautiful and you want to buy it all), you can make stops to visit temples. We visited a little bit by chance the Pura Gunung Lebah, at the beginning of the Campuhan Ridge walk. The temple is beautiful, on the lower part of the town a little hidden, surrounded by jungle and with views over the river. It feel here like being outside of the town, not 100% silent but it’s easy to forget the city life.
After enjoying the place, we started the Campuhan Ridge walk, 4km return where you can see on ricefields on both sides. It’s a little bit sporty at the beginning but nothing really hard and it’s like a slight green digression in town.
Unlike these two places, we didn’t like so much the Sacred Monkey forest. Maybe because we were in high touristic season, so too much people there. The first attraction of the place is feeding monkeys and you forget really easily the place where you are. It’s a shame because the forest is really beautiful but because of the crowd stopping everytime for monkeys the place quickly becomes insufferable. The entrance fees surprised us too, it’s the most expensive place we went to, 50 000 rp.
Good tips :
Saraswati padong : Our homestay for 4 days. A little paradise, we didn’t have a room but a small villa with bathroom half open on the outside, a room upstairs with vew on the ricefield. Beautiful place, the staff is really nice and we feel a little like at home. The bonus is the price being really reasonable.
Warung Makan Bu Rus : little family restaurant, don’t trust the front of the place, everything happens behind, in a beautiful little garden.
Puspa : tiny restaurant completely open on the street. The typical Balinese dishes are super good. Also you are relatively quiet as it is on a side street.
