|
|
Day
3 (October 21, 2018) Ubud
Antes
This day should be dedicated to Ubud and, may be,
some
visit nearby. This is the day for shopping and, probably, trying one of
the local specialties: massages.
The spots marked at map are:
0- Hotel The Umari
1- Ubud Palace
2- Campuhan Ridge Walk
3- Ubud Market
4- Monkey Forest
|
Después
Breakfast is brought at 8 AM, as requested
yesterday. 30 minutes later we’re leaving the hotel for a walk to Ubud
city center. We pass by the palace which we’ll visit later today, as it
is closed now. The city is full of charming corners, with small temples
and offerings in the floor constantly appearing as we go.
 
We can see around people in their worship at this
time of the morning, putting new offerings and praying. Traffic in main
street is feeding the constant sound of the swarm of motorbikes here.
Our first visit is to the River Temple, which we couldn’t know the
exact location before coming, but could easily find it, as it is by
this main road (Raya Ubud Street). It’s shocking the change in the
environment just by leaving the street for a few meters.
 
We keep walking this street until reaching the
start of Campuhan Ridge Walk. Our plan here is just to do part of the
walk and come back. This part is already fantastic. The landscape after
the temple is jungle, with rice plantations here and there.
   
Once back in the main road, we’re tired and
thinking about taking a taxi to the Monkey Forest, but as we cannot
find one at this point we keep walking back in direction to the palace.
Before reaching it, we visit the temple besides Lotus Café, where the
lake is so full of lotus plants that you can barely see the water.
 
Then we get into Ubud Palace where, aside of
exploring its courtyards, as interior is not opened to public, we get
our tickets for tonight’s Balinese Dances show by 100,000 rupees each.
 
We make some time before lunch by going to the
Central Market, which is just in front of the Palace, across the road.
We walk through stands with handcrafts, gifts, clothes… until reaching
the other side, where we take a place in the Bamboo Guest House’s
terrace for lunching. We pay 214000 rupees for two courses of rice with
seafood, a Greek salad and a shared dessert made of pieces of fruit
with yogurt and honey.
We take Monkey Forest Street from there, which is
full of modern stores until reaching the forest giving name to the
street. We could see before the monkey than the forest.
 
Admission tickets for Monkey Forest are 50000
rupees each.
Once inside, we can see big groups of monkeys soon, as they’re around
the feeding platforms, where they can get as many sweet potatoes as
they want.
 
We follow the route through this piece of jungle,
which is
full of beautiful places for amazing pictures. As we advance, monkeys
go from protagonists to extras.
   
In the exit, we find out there is a free bus for
customers connecting the forest with Ubud city center, so we take it
and leave in the stop it has in front of the palace. We walk back to
the hotel from there for a rest and some relaxing time in the swimming
pool.
 
It's around 6 PM when we leave the hotel and get
some
dinner by the main road in our way to the palace: penne agliolio,
grilled chicken and brownie by 124000 rupees. We reach the palace by
7:15 PM. The show starts at 7:30 PM but it is already full inside and
is hard to find a free seat.
The performance takes 1.5 hours and I’m surprised by the importance
eyes have on these dances: they move following the music and dancers
avoid to blink until they change their position. There are lots of
musicians playing traditional instruments and performers change their
colorful costumes for every dance.
 
Today has been the first day dedicated full day to
our
touring and this is what we’re thinking as we go to the hotel, where
we’re crazy about getting the bed.
|
|
|
|
