Ubud , Indonesia

 From the busy and bustling tourist town of Kuta we made our way inland to another tourist hub, Ubud.  The town has a busy main drag with lots of hotels and restaurants but we opted to go just outside the center and found a cute little hotel nestled in between the terraced rice paddies with our little private balcony where we ate our breakfasts of strong coffee and banana pancakes. 

We were busy bodies and I took in a yoga class (being in a predominately Hindu part of the country I was a little taken a back when I found out the class was taught by an Aussie), we took in a dance show and spent many hours at the local Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary.   

The sanctuary is a natural habitat for wild long tailed monkeys but with hoards of tourists feeding them bananas they have grown so accustomed to human presence and interact and lounge around all nonchalant while you cruise by and take their pictures. We were both a little scared of them, being fed by tourists they didn't mind getting real close and trying to inspect your bags for goodies.  My favorite part was watching the monkeys who had babies and how their interaction with them was almost human.  They cuddled them and groomed them and even let them explore so long as they were touching mom and if they awkwardly stumbled too far the mom would quickly pull them back in to her safety. 

While in Ubud we had some great meals, our favorite being roast suckling pig, we returned twice to the little eatery (warung) to eat the special which was a a heap of rice covered in a little bit of everything from crispy skin to tender ribs.  After three days in the cultural capital we have made our way to the quiet coral coast of Amed.


R