Once we started to get the boat together and we were confident we could cast off without too much hassle, we had a trip inland to see some sights. We organised a driver to take us up to Ubud and we stayed in a cheap room for four nights before returning. While still a very tourist dominated town, Ubud is much less chaotic than Kuta or Denpassar, and worth the time to enjoy the place.
On the way up we stopped at Goa Gajah, the Elephant Cave temple, as most people do. The temples are fascinating as they are not just relics from a bygone time, but still worshipped in everyday life.All photos taken in Ubud
On the first night we had dinner at a little restaurant, Ayu's Kitchen, in Monkey Forest Road, and then Courtney & Liz went to see a Legong dance at Ubud Palace. Anna & I were too tired and went home to bed.Our days at Ubud consisted of school work in the mornings, and then an outing in the afternoon on most days. One trip took us to the Neka Art Gallery and we saw the inspiration of all the artwork in the shops around town. Other days we wandered the markets looking at the huge array of things to buy.
The last day in Ubud saw Liz off to the Casa Luna Cooking School. She came back very happy with the day and a cookbook, apron and a mission to produce Balinese food. The girls went to a Batik class with a local artist I Nyoman Suradnya, who is a lovely patient man who guided the girls through the process of creating their own piece of Batik. 
In the afternoon we went to Pondok Pendak Library & Resources Centre and watched local kids practicing their dances and spoke to an American volunteer helping to run the library. We made a gift of excess books the girls had outgrown.Our last night in Ubud saw us off to see wayang kulit, a shadow puppet play. While sometimes the language was a barrier, it was still very much a 'good vs evil' show and the shadow effect on the elaborately carved puppets was wonderful.
the CD Version of the web site has a movie of Balinese kids at dance lessons and the Shadow puppets
On the trip back, we detoured to visit Mount Batur, with it's spectacular views. On the way we stopped at the small town of Tampaksiring to see Gunung Kawi, a temple with large carvings in the mountainside and Tirta Empul, a water temple. There we went for a lovely walk through the rice fields to see a not so spectacular waterfall. But the walk was worth it.
We had lunch in a very touristy restaurant on the greater crater rim and enjoyed the spectacular view. After lunch we headed down the mountains and stopped at some beautiful rice terraces around the village Garuda, which is named after and produces statutes of the mythical bird-creature, the symbol of modern Indonesia. This again was well visited and we were swamped a bit with hawkers as we got out of the car.
We got back to the boat and then appreciated the cooler mountain climate. Back to schoolwork and jobs.
No comments:
Post a Comment