Ubud

Only a few minute walk from our bungalow is the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, the home to thousands of long-tail macaques. Inside the sanctuary is also a large temple dedicated to the dead, Pura Dalem Agung. The carvings on the temple are appropriately frightening, and make its purpose very clear. The jungle setting of this area is rather beautiful, with a small stream running through the sanctuary and lush plant life everywhere. The monkeys here are much less aggressive then the first time we saw them at Uluwatu, where they are trained to steal tourists glasses, earrings, watches, anything they can get their hands on, and then you must barter with food to get your stuff back.


We walked from our hotel to the center of Ubud in the afternoon, a walk that usually takes about 25 mins took us a few hours because we stopped at several shops along the way. The shopping in Ubud is awesome, with tons of small and unique shops sells all different types of clothes, art, jewelry, all with air conditioning (always a plus). The pace of life is Ubud is also much different then in Kuta. There is much less traffic, the people are friendlier, and everyone generally seems much more relaxed.

Since we have been enjoying a more relaxing stay in Ubud, I have taken the opportunity to learn some Indonesian. I have been able to say "good morning," "thank you," and "hello," but now I can count from 1-10. I know this isn't impressive at all, but it took me most of today to learn those numbers and its harder then you think! Tomorrow I will work on numbers 11-20. :)

The photograph below is from the sunset this evening, and was taken from the edge of the rice fields next to our bungalow. We have great views of the rice paddies, and their calming nature is just what we need after a hectic week of seeing every part of the island.

More of Ubud to come in the next post.