Indonesia: Bali, Ubud

A note from Marta....

Ubud, Bali (now famous for the setting of the movie "Eat, Pray, Love") is up in the mountains a couple hours from the metropolitan center of Bali. I convinced the boys we needed to explore this haven for the last two days of Joe's travels. We started the morning off with a Bali Bike Tour....basically 17 miles all downhill. We did an extended home visit to one of the rural family compounds. All the homes are based around a communal kitchen and Hindu temple, which is interesting because the rest of Indonesia is mainly Muslim. The highlight of the tour was biking through the numerous rice paddies, as you can tell from the photos below.

We met Conway in Ubud after our very strenuous day of biking for a big night in Ubud. She already had a mojito happy hour planned for us. The next stop was the famous rib joint called Naughty Nuri's, also written up by the NY Times and Anthony Bourdain. Not only are they known for their BBQ ribs (grilled near the street), but also their strong coctails. Bloody Mary, yes please! We spent a good few hours there. A few drinks later we were ready to hit the Ubud scene, of course totally happening on a Monday night at 8pm.

We called our newly befriended cab driver and proceeded to drive multiple loops around Ubud with bad hip hop and lots of bass blaring. Obviously a good idea. We finally settled on the only bar that had people in it, all older than us. They also had a live local band. Highlights of the evening include Joe and Conway interpretively dancing to a slow song followed by a round of applause, and Drew singing along out of turn "I was petrified" in such a loud voice that the singer stopped and wanted him to join in. We made it back to the hotel by midnight, only after being the entertainment of Ubud that night!

Joe's last day in Bali was Tuesday. That day we meandered around all the shops in Ubud, took in the Yoga scene at a hip restaurant Kafe, and last, but not least, Joe got his much wanted pedicure! We spent the evening relaxing at Conway's villa back in Seminyak. Joe - we will miss you as a travel partner!

Lake Danau Batur near a couple of Bali's volcanos and the largest lake on the island. This was the start of our Bali Eco Bike Tour day. 

I wanted to see rice paddies. That was definitely the highlight of the bike tour.

Harvesting rice.

Joe helping with the rice harvest.

Somehow we all matched for the bike tour. We look particularly hardcore here considering the entire bike ride was downhill. 

We livened up the "older" Ubud scene on a Monday night. This is only one of the pictures documenting the fun we had. I think it was only 9pm.