UBUD BIKING AND COOKING

Ubud

Ubud

Ubud

Ubud

My last 2 days in Ubud were spent taking a cooking course and cycling day trip.

The cooking course was fun and we made some yummy food which I have no hope in hell of recreating! ha ha. We started in the morning market and then went to Puspa and Wayan's home just outside of Ubud where they run their cooking school. It was really well organised and we sampled many yummy Indonesian dishes we created before leaving very full at 3pm...I didn't even eat dinner that night I was so full.

Tons of fresh veggies in the market

Ubud market

Making offerings for the Hindu people to use.

Mmmmmmm...chicken.

Every fruit imaginable.

Puspa and her giant mortar and pestle.

 On my last day here I did a cycling day trip. It was fun but mostly downhill so no exercise received but a nice way to see lots of little villages and the very scenic views to be had here. I was so tired when I got back to my room, I think from all the activity the last couple weeks, that I crashed and napped for 2 hours.

I finally dragged myself up and hit the town for some final shopping and dinner. The shopping is really, really good here with tons of great shops, especially silver shops all with unique jewelry that is my price range so I have a bag full of great finds. I also stumbled upon a great reflexology place for my daily foot massage and an amazing restaurant...if I had found this place day one I would have eaten every meal here it was that good. It rained tonight and the power was out to the whole town for almost an hour so I ate by candle light and read my book waiting to power to come back on for my walk back home...LOVE my lighted kindle cover!!

I head out of Ubud Friday and will miss it. Really lovely place. It was good to be here this week as there were lots of Hindu festivals going on...almost everyone in Bali is Hindu (85%)...Temples are everywhere...the streets littered with daily offerings and burning incense. This week there have been celebrations including these great parades through the streets with drums and music and everyone dressed in their Sunday best.

WHITE WATER RAFTING

Me in my gear...Yeah, I look like a dork!

I went white water rafting in the Ayung river today. What a fun day! The river had class 2 and 3 rapids which were good fun. It is the longest river in Indonesia running 75Km. Lots of rafts an the water, screaming, laughing, water fights and rapid bumper cars. I had never been white water rafting and went at the recommendation of my homestay family and had a blast.

The scenery was stunning as the river wound through steep cavernous limestone cliffs covered in rainforest and cascading waterfalls. Beautiful sunny weather today too.

Rock carvings.

TEMPLES AND TERRACES

I took a day tour today to see a bunch of the temples and sights around Ubud. It was a great day but the hassle and touts around the temples are awful. You were followed mercilessly by sellers, even children, demanding you buy something and refusing to accept NO! It was very annoying and made it hard to enjoy what you came to see. A lot of corruption here in Bali...our guide had to constantly pay off the police to get through the roads. They stop the cars with tourists and demand money, he had his ashtray full of small bills to bribe the cops with and went through them all...even with taking back roads to avoid them. Once in the temples your admission price included the sari and traditional ribbon required to enter the temples but the ladies who dressed you would try to get more money out of you demanding you have to buy or rent the sari at 100 000IDR (crazy high price even if you were to buy it) then they'll insist you need to buy or rent another sari to wear over your shoulders and get really hostile when you say no. Then finally when you refuse to back down and they realize you aren't paying them they let you in and are suddenly nice again...but probably a lot of people pay them as they put on a good show of outrage and are quite aggressive.

Besalkih Temple

This temple is right on the slopes of Mount Agung. Gunung Agung last erupted in 1963-64 and is still active. It has a large and very deep crater which occasionally still spits out smoke and ash. It's the highest point on the island and biggest and holiest of all the Balinese temples. It was named after a dragon god believed to live in the mountain.

Eighteen separate sanctuaries belonging to different regencies and caste groups surround the three main temples dedicated to Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu. The mountain top setting gives it a mystical quality as the steps rise through the tall gates into different courtyards. Great mountain views from the back.

All the statues are dressed up for a recent ceremony they had.

View from the back of the temple.

Goa Gajah or Elephant Cave

Derived from the name Lwa Gajah, originally meaning elephant waters, it is one of the most historical sites in Bali and was built in the 11th century, on the western edge of Bedulu Village only six kilometres out of central Ubud. The entire site of Goa Gajah was partially destroyed by natural disaster and lay undetected for centuries before being rediscovered by a team of Dutch archaeologists in 1923.
Goa Gajah is a place to meditate and worship the Lord Ganesha, the Hindu God of knowledge and wisdom, who is characterised as an entity by his elephant head and four arms. In the area around the site there are beautifully landscaped gardens and two traditional bathing pools.

Gunung Kawi

Gunung Kawi is a 10th century Hindu temple complex. To explore it you have to descend a 300-step stone stairway leading to a beautiful valley. There you will find ten seven-metre-high memorials carved into the rock face. According to legend, these ruined temples are the memorial shrines of the king's concubines and his family.

Pura Tirta Empul


The name 'Tirta Empul' refers to a crystal-clear stream which is used as holy water for various religious ceremonies. Legend has it that the God Indra, to revive his forces who had been poisoned by Mayadanawa (a powerful evil King from Blingkang, a region north of Lake Batur), created this sacred spring.
Inside the inner sanctum, you can see a number of rectangular bathing pools where for more than 1,000 years the Balinese have come to bathe for healing and spiritual cleansing. We saw many locals praying and bathing in the water. They have a huge fish pond too and for 2000IDR, about 20cents, you could buy food and insight quite the entertaining feeding frenzy!

Balinese man bathing in the fountain and praying.

Spiritually purifying my feet!

Feeding fenzy.

Tegalalang Rice Terraces

Tegalalang countryside is located at 5 km northern part of Ubud Village and have the most magnificent view of rice terraces I have ever seen. The rice terraces are designed very beautifully and cascade down the hill bank into the river below. It was like looking into a painting, it was too beautiful to be real.