Part Five: Our trip started with pickup at 8:30 from the Conrad Suites entrance. This was extremely convenient, as there are lots of steps just to make it to the lobby. Our trip today would revolve around Ubud and some of the surrounding areas. The drive to Ubud is around an hour from the hotel and most of the time more intense than the Road to Hana in Maui. While there may be “two” lanes here, there are cars and motorcycles parked along both sides of the street and cars and motorcycles are constantly cutting each other off with little to no signaling.
Our first stop was the traditional Barong Balinese dance. This show was by far the most expensive thing we did (100,000 IDR per person ~7.50) and took around an hour. The dance is really some story about good and evil with what seemed like some “questionable” scene at the end. While not a must go, it was pretty Interesting, aside from the screaming the performers were doing.
Dance Musicians:These guys looked grumpy the entire time.Tiger:We were a bit late so did not get great seats.Story of the Dance: Stop two was in the art village at some random art shop/house/temple? We were escorted around and shown the different pieces of art, but it all looked kind of manufactured to me, with some kids looking at phones and tracing pictures. After about ten minutes there, we were ready to move on to the next stop.
Stop three was the monkey temple and sanctuary. This was a really cool stop and blows the monkey show in Thailand out of the water. You walk around paths in and out of these structures, along bridges just looking out for monkeys. While looking makes it sound like they were hard to find, the monkey were in fact everywhere and were even jumping/climbing on people. There was a sign posted with some guidelines about what you should do if a monkey jumps on you, and screaming was one you were not supposed to do. However, some of the tourists could not help themselves and made matters worse for themselves. I believe the entrance fee was 10,000 IDR (about $0.80 a person), and the kid was free. We spent an hour or so walking around the area and then did a little souvenir shopping right outside.
Parent/Child Cleaning:Monkey:Monkey Temple: Stop four was a bit f the way up the road and at Ubud market and the Ubud Palace. Here our driver managed to squeeze into some spot with the help of a parking man(?), who you tip/pay afterwards. We did some walking around the different shops, but they were all very similar and did not have anything too intriguing. At this point my kid was getting cranky so we stopped to eat lunch. We had asked the hotel to warm up our lunch for the day and have it ready for 8:15. We were then able to put it in our cooler/heater bag and had a reasonable warm lunch of pizza and mac and cheese. The Ubud palace was across the street and was a lot smaller than the one we saw in Seoul. After some pictures and walking around, we were off to our final stop.
Stop five was the rice paddies. It was at least 25 minutes farther out of the direction we would eventually go back in, but it was something we wanted to see. When we arrived at the parking lot, there was a little booth to get your ticket (10,000 IDR per person) and the baby was free. Now the parking area is not by the entrance to the rice paddies. We were told to make a left and walk a bit down to see it. Well walk we did, and see it we did as well, however, we could not find the entrance to the rice paddies. We kept walking down stairs to restaurants and shops with amazing views, but no real way down the mountain. After some more walking around, we found steps that supposedly led to the paddies. For anyone with a kid or little kids, these stairs were not so easy at all and really take a lot out of you. By the time we made it down, we about had enough and decided to just walk back up, as the views were much better. There were 215 oddly shaped and placed steps to get back up, and it was rough. So a heads-up for anyone going, beware.
Rice Terracing from Above:Another Shot: At this point we were wiped out and just wanted to get back to the hotel. The drive was around 1.5 hours and much of the same repetitive stores and shops. We made it back in time for afternoon tea, where I am sitting with my feet up writing this. The rest of the day will be relaxing with a hotel/water sports day planned for tomorrow.
Low Tide on The Way Home:This was all water on the drive this morning.