Ubud

Ubud from my research is the hipster/influencer capital of Bali. I was surprised by how busy and chaotic the city center was. It is a small city in terms of per capita and there are no skyscrapers or the signature tourist icon – Hardrock Café, but there are lots of people, cars and tons and tons of scooters/motorcycles. I was overwhelmed walking down the narrow sidewalks as traffic zoomed by, a young child stepped in front of me pulled down his pants and started peeing off the sidewalk onto the road (shocking) and there are small daily offerings everywhere on the sidewalk you must be sure to avoid.  

I kicked off my exploration with a walk through the Ubud Art Market, given I am already struggling to close my suitcase - no purchases were made. I was however shocked by the amount of wooden penis sculptures and bottle openers - they were EVERYWHERE. I asked my driver the next day about this and he said it is to make it not sexual and show as art. After about 5 minutes of walking around I thought it best I treat myself and I had some incredible coconut nut ice cream + a massage. The leg and shoulder massage was mostly lovely, but I do deserve an Academy Award for not flinching during this between the toes massage (look at those fingers between my toes in the photo below). 

​I stayed in the jungle 10 minutes outside of city center, which was very pretty but I didn’t realize how loud those jungle animals are at 4 AM.

The next morning my Grab (their version of Uber) driver from the night before offered to drive my around and take me to the sights before I had to be picked up for turtle time. First, he took me to take the famous Bali swing photos. I wasn’t feeling my most glam so I didn’t opt to pay extra for the fancy Bali dress you see on Instagram, but swinging unglamorously was still fun! 

Also, at the location of the Bali swing they made coffee and teas. My guide was extremely knowledgeable and taught me the following:

1. Cinnamon is made from bark of the below tree
2. There is a fancy coffee where a luwak eats coffee beans which ferments the coffee beans then poops out the beans and they roast that to make the coffee, which I’m told is much smoother and not as bitter as typical coffee (I’ll let the coffee drinkers be the judge of that)

Next up was the Monkey Forest! It was fascinating to be up close and personal with so many monkeys and nice to find out checking for ticks/bugs is a real thing monkeys do. I was nervous the entire time though because they can be a bit aggressive and will grab things from people and run away with them. Nevertheless, I loved observing the monkeys and loved the sculptures around the whole park.

​My final Ubud stop was an Instagram worth smoothie bowl on the way to my turtle time drop off.