Ubud - a brief Sojourn

Day 19 - 17 May 14

The public ferry to Bali has functional plastic benches beneath a roof with open sides. It is not crowded. Indonesian pop ballads blast out of the speaker. The passengers on the ferry are mainly Indonesian workers. On the lower deck is a public bus on it's way to Denpasar for which we buy tickets. A man that works on the ferry kindly carries our hefty rucksacks down the steep metal stairs and onto the bus, as easily as if they are small day-packs.

On leaving the port, the Indonesian passengers are asked to show their identification cards. We watch a dodgy exchange on the bus whereby an Indonesian, who clearly does not have a suitable pass, bribes the police to let him through. He offers them 15,000 IDR, which is all the money he appears to be in possession of. It is not enough, so his friend frantically shoves more notes into his hand. They accept 35,000 IDR and the bus moves on. I am sitting on the back of the bus, perched in between 2 seats. It's not very comfortable and as my rucksack has been precariously balanced behind the seats, large bumps in the road cause it to fall on my head. On nearing Denpasar, the bus stops - I ask the passenger seated next to me what is going on - he says we need to change to another bus to go to Denpasar. We lift our bags and join the mad dash, only to realise we are now on a slower public bus that stops frequently. We are confused as to what has just happened as we watch the other bus speed off in front of us, clearly with the same destination.

At Ujung bus terminal, a guy shouts to us from the street that he can drive us to Ubud for 100,000. The lonely planet guide suggests you can catch a Bemo for 13,000 Rp from Batabulan and the driver nods his head that we will be stopping there too. At the bus terminal, we eat a late lunch at a street stall - beans, potatoes and a peanut dish with rice, it is spicy and tasty.

It appears the lonely planet is out of date and has slightly misled us. Batubulan bus terminal is lined with market stalls, which fill the parking spaces below the names of destinations. Having located the toilet amidst the chaos, I inadvertently place our snack bag into a red ant's nest whilst using the facilities – we are forced to sacrifice our food now crawling with this infestation. There are only 2 men at the bus terminal with a Bemo so we have little bargaining power. They refuse point blank to lower the price from 150,000 as it is late, which is very frustrating after refusing a lower offer from the previous bus station. We eventually agree on a slightly discounted price and head out of the busy city.

We enter Ubud - the buildings are beautiful, but expensive clothes shops and restaurants of a variety of cuisines line the streets. It is no longer the secret hippy hideaway we have heard about, but a commercial tourist destination, drastically changed most likely since the blockbuster ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ came out. Stevie, who we met in

Pangandaran, has been in touch. She is staying in Ubud and has kindly booked us a room. Ubud is unknown to our driver, so after driving up and down the same road a few times, we get out to locate the guesthouse ourselves. We walk the length of Sugriwa road to find our accommodation. Nobody has heard of Adinda Homestay, but we eventually locate it behind a small ornate metal garden gate, painted copper to hide the rust. Wooden carved doors open into our room, which is clean, white and spacious.

We eat in a Balinese restaurant, trying a variety of small plates: shredded coconut with chicken; a beans and bean sprout dish; cheese wrapped in tofu fried and dipped into sauces; a pickled cabbage and carrot mix with a flavour similar to a Vietnamese sauce - all placed neatly in banana leaf boats. The food is nice but nothing special. We enjoy our first small glass of wine since our arrival in Indonesia. I savour every sip despite the slightly acidic flavour.

On our return we stop at the shiny supermarket to buy water. The shelves are full of expensive imported food and drink, all neatly stacked in rows, with every brand and food type a foreigner away from home might crave – signifying a large, rich expat community.

Day 20 - 18 May 14

We sit on our little porch with tea and coffee. Breakfast is included - fruit and a banana filled pancake, which is bright green with a slimy texture - it looks like a giant steamed dumpling from Ping Pong.

We stroll around the town - leafy green trees grow along the roads. The Balinese architecture consists of buildings made of small red bricks roofed with orange tiles. The corners of the roofs point upwards similar to the old Chinese style. Ornate sculptures decorate the buildings, carved from grey stone. Hindu statues guard the entrance to buildings. Some of the older buildings are crumbling slightly with age - lichen covers the stone and vines and plants grow in the cracks. There are also buildings which appear to be recently constructed yet imitate the same architecture - the bricks look newly lain and the statues appear to have been made using concrete set in moulds. We walk along Monkey Forest road - a few monkeys hang out at the roadside and humorous statues of monkeys line the street. At the intersection onto the main road is Ubud Palace - we step inside the courtyard but the rest of the royal palace is closed to the public. The streets are lined with shops and the market sells similar ware. A Japanese tour group strolls past, all wearing an assortment of straw hats, just bought from the stalls. Travellers and holiday-makers are dressed in clothing we recognise from the shop windows. Taxi drivers every 2 metres are trying to sell trips and women outside massage parlours attempt to usher us inside for treatments.

In the evening, we meet Stevie and join her and a couple (friends through her brother) for dinner. The restaurant is in a beautiful building made from bamboo with dark wood rafters, long cylindrical lights hanging from the high ceiling and rustic wooden tables. The menu covers a mixture of cuisines, all with fresh organic produce. It's a nice meal in good company with interesting conversation. The town sleeps early - as we head home the streets are silent.

Day 21 - 19 May 14

The man that runs the guesthouse serves us French Toast and syrup this morning. He has such a sweet-tempered persona - he nods and smiles continuously and is always so cheerful and helpful.

In the morning we pay an expensive fee to an agency (950,000 IDR) for a visa extension. They appear to be a reputable company. The cost is preferable to the hassle of booking a flight out and back into Indonesia. The immigration office will be closed for a number of days due to the upcoming Hindu festival, so unfortunately it is impossible to organise ourselves.

All the locals in town are preparing for the celebrations. Women and men outside their shop fronts and on the pavements are crafting decorations. Tall bamboo trunks wrapped in colourful cloth, bamboo leaves cut or curled into pretty patterns stapled to the structure or wreaths of corn hanging below, to be planted along the side of the road like street lamps. Everyday offerings are made to the gods, so the women are continuously weaving small decorations intermixed with colourful flowers, with a little food (normally rice or a small biscuit) on banana leaves, placed on the pavement outside their homes with incense sticks burning on top. This fragrance diffuses into all corners of the town.

We join Stevie and her friend Russ for lunch, walking through the rice paddies just outside town to a restaurant in the middle of the fields: a wooden circular stage structure on stilts covered by a tipi style tent and peaceful surrounding views of an intense green. I eat a chicken salad and share pita with dips along with 2 glasses of sangria - an indulgent lunch. It's such a lovely setting that we remain there all afternoon. On the walk back, the rice paddies reflect the sun like mirrors. We drink refreshing homemade lemonade at a cafe on Monkey Forest Street overlooking rice paddies stretching out like a multitude of infinity pools.

Day 22 - 20 May 14

We stay reading on our guesthouse porch with the thermos of water for tea and coffee until midday. At midday we have booked a beginner lesson at Yoga Barn - it is a popular establishment in Ubud. It is a highly successful enterprise and we can see why. They own a large plot of land, utilised with bamboo buildings and little pathways through garden areas to the different airy studio rooms. There is an organic cafe in the grounds for people to relax after their session. It is easy to see how one could become all engrossed within this environment.

It is obvious those of us that are new to yoga in comparison to those for whom yoga is a way of life, with their confident, calm walk and perfect postures. In these types of places, it can sometimes seem to me that the serene, welcoming smiles is a pretense masking a condescending sneer towards those who are not such healthy, 'spiritual' beings. Perhaps it is just my paranoia. The teacher is nice, but a little patronising, calling us yogis and thanking us for this special opportunity to allow her to teach us. After the class, coming out of a toilet Hannah encounters an older hippy who tells her - 'yellow is mellow, so I didn't flush'. We both agree that we will not be so environmentally friendly in our shared hostel bathrooms!

We visit the monkey forest. The monkeys are very tame and we are wary that they may snatch our cameras. A river runs through the centre of the forest. Hanging vines and banyan trees grow along the concrete paths - the setting for an Indiana Jones movie as the guidebook suggests. Monkey statues sit along the walls mimicking the same actions as the surrounding monkeys, picking bugs out of each other's hair, chasing each other's tails, and snacking. A temple sits in the centre of the forest - the monkeys' playground. It reminds me of the Jungle Book in which the monkeys inhabit the ruins of a castle. In the forest away from the crowds, a lone white butterfly floats like a feather amongst low hanging leaves.

In the evening we join Stevie and Russ to watch a dance show in town. As Ubud is the cultural centre of Bali, it's something we feel we should experience. A group of men, dressed in checked black and white wraparound skirts sit on the floor in a circle in a small temple setting outside. The audience sits on plastic chairs in a semicircle, close enough to feel encompassed within the show.

There are no instruments - the accompaniment to the dance is purely vocal. Bass voices keep a steady beat, bo - bo - bo - bo, the 3rd note a 4th below, the altos a repetitive singing harmony eeya - eeya, and on top of this a fast - cheuka cheuka cheuka cheuka, emulating the chattering of monkeys. The rhythm is syncopated. Their bodies sway and their hands are raised shaking like jazz hands, sometimes clapping in replacement of the percussion instruments that are lacking. This 'beat boxing' is interchanged from time to time by singing, which has an African gospel feel. A female choir enters halfway through and there are a few solo performances, which I assume narrates the story.

Hindu characters appear: women in beautiful gold headdresses, the evil villain, mythological animal characters, and spirits. They dance slowly and robotically, with their hands and arms creating the main feature of the dance.

In the 2nd half, kindling is placed centre stage. 2 men pour flammable liquid onto the wood from dirty plastic bottles. The wood is set alight, flaming suddenly and creating clouds of smoke as if from a mini volcano. A man canters around the fire appearing from behind the smoke intermittently, carrying a metal structure with a horses head at the front which he lifts up and down in an unrealistic manner (in stark comparison to the lifelike puppets in Warhorse). He runs through the fire itself, bare footed kicking up sparks like fireflies. As the show ends, a Hindu priest, dressed in white, ceremoniously drops water into the hands of the main performers repeatedly, with which they douse their heads. We assume it is some sort of blessing.

At dinner in the evening, we drink a cocktail called Arrack Attack - we figure it's safer to try arak (a distilled alcoholic drink) in a nice restaurant setting. We have heard horror stories of tourists poisoned by arrack that contains methanol, presumably included to increase the seller’s profit.

Both Stevie and Russ have had an interesting life, 2 years of which were spent within the Peace Corps organisation working in Uganda. We're fascinated and ask lots of questions about their time there, which seems to have had a large impact on their lives, partly due to the difficulties they had to overcome but also to their new founded cynicism. Russ is now a diplomat in the American embassy in Chiang Mai, interviewing Thais for their visa requests to enter the US. He, not unsurprisingly, often encounters young Thai girls who want a visa to go to the US to stay with their friend, who happens to be a much older Western man and who is currently in Thailand with them. Russ has friends in Bangkok and Rangoon in Burma, so we are hoping he will be able to hook us up with these contacts to visit on our travels. We say goodbye as we are leaving for different destinations the following day.