It was much harder to find a place to stay, than we thought it would be due to it being high season here. But in the end Markus found a nice little guesthouse with a pool and a breakfast, while Carina waited in a restaurant with the luggage.
Ubud is a town in central Bali.
The town is regarded as the cultural center of Bali and the town itself and the nearby villages seems to consist of artist's workshops and galleries. Around the area there is a general feeling of well being to be found and enjoyed, all thanks to the spirit, surroundings and the climate of the place.
While Ubud seems like one small town, it is in fact fourteen villages, each run by its own banjar or village committee. Ubud has grown rapidly and some central parts are almost not coping with the number of visitors. Growth continues apace, but there are still terraced rice fields along the rivers and away from the town center, regular quiet village life carries on relatively undisturbed.
Everywhere here in Ubud and surroundings there are temples and statues,
big and small in between the village houses.
In according, with Balinese Hindu philosophy peace and liberty are obtainable in our lives only, when we respect and observe the three harmonious relationships known as "the Hita Karana Doctrine".
1: The Gods blessed life and created nature and all of its contents
2: Nature offers sustenance to support the needs and activities of human beings.
3: Human beings have an obligation to establish a traditional village structure, to build temples in which worship, to hold various ceremonies, to make daily offering, to preserve nature and to solve problems together.
We visited "Mandala Suci Wenara Wana" or the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary as the first thing in Ubud.
Some people told us it is not a nice place, due to the monkeys being aggressive and the place over crowded with tourist, but we liked it.
Its a beautiful place with nature, statues and temples in one.
The Balinese macaques (monkeys) live in the sanctuary and are also known as the long-tailed macaques.
About 600 macaques currently reside the monkey forest.
There are approximately 77 adult males, 194 adult females and 334 young monkeys.
Some monkeys were helping each other in the shower,
They looked like they enjoyed it. :)
while some monkeys sat alone
and looked so sad.
These macaques live primarily in three clusters of females and males and each of these groups tends to use different areas of the forest at different times of the day.
There were many families.
The babies were really cute.
The way the grown up kept their young close looked funny. They did it by holding the tail of the baby... :)
But sometimes the babies got away.
One of the rangers in the forest, asked us if we wanted to give a little piece of a cookie to this monkey.
Markus said yes.
Based on an analysis of the "Pura Purana", a holy lontar book, which is a sacred Hindu historical writing of the temples, The Holy Monkey Temples, were built in the mid 14th century, during the Pejeng Dynasty or early Gel gel Dynasty.
There are tree sacred temples in the Sacred Monkey Forest:
The Pura Dalem Agung Temple, which is the most prominent temple of the sanctuary.
The Holy Bathing Temple, with a structure of the three Mandalas. A mandala is a Hindu or Buddhist graphic symbol of the universe, more specifically, an enclosing square with a deity on each side, that is used chiefly as an aid to meditation.
The Pura Prajapati Temple or funeral/cremation temple, which is placed alongside a little graveyard.
and the Sacred Monkey Forest serves not only as an important component in the spiritual and daily lives of the village, but is the site of several research and conservation programs.
The nature was amazing,
with small paths in between the big old jungle-forrest.
After this visit we went for great Balinese food and drinks and because it rained in the evening we did not go far from our hotel.
The next day the rain was gone and we decided to take a walk to the rice fields.
The rice in Bali is harvested 3 times a year, but this rice still have some growing to do.
A woman working in the rice.
Not a bad job...
Blue sky and beautiful setting everyday... :)
Just a nice little house.
A house where people could practise yoga. We agreed on, if we would do yoga, then this is not a bad choice for a place.
We did the "Campuhan Ridge Walk", with beautiful and breathtaking scenery while we were walking.
During the day we saw wild eggplant.
On the way we met Augustus. He showed us a very local way to an idyllic river.
On the way he climbed a coconut palm tree
It is funny the way they use just a piece of banana bark to climb a tall tree.
Some of the way was steep and slippery and Augustus were Carinas Balinese taxi.
On the way we saw local animals.
In the end we were at the river and the setting was beautiful and
we were there all alone.
After our walk we visited " Puri Saren Agung" or the Royal Palace/Water Palace.
This was the palace of the kings of Ubud until the 1940's, and
some royal descendants live there to this day.
Most parts of the complex are off limits to the public, but the rest is free.
This temple palace was over crowded with tourists and we did not stay for long.
We also had a quick walk around the market.
It is a big market and
we bought some shirts,
4 dollars sunglasses for Carina,
had some food and
took some pictures before we went to see the Kecak dance show.
The show/dance was amazing partly because all accompanying music is provided by the human voice, the gamelan suara.
The dance is old and is redeveloped about the years just after 1930.
In the epic the monkey helps Prince Rama defeat the evil King Ravana. The Kecak-dance has roots in sanghyang, a god-inspired trance-inducing exorcism dance.
The day after was a day for a scooter adventure.
This was our itinerary for the day.
We rented a scooter from the hotel. It was only 5 dollars and then we visited some temples:
1: "Goa Gajah" or the Elephant Cave.
The complex is situated at Bedulu village just 2 km south east of Ubud. Here the main attraction is a cave dating back to the ninth century. The entrance to the cave is an ornately carved demon's mouth with large, carved guards around near the entrance. Inside are some fragmentary lingam (mark or sign as a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva) and yoni (the symbol of Goddess, the Hindu Divine Mother) statues as well as a statue of Ganesha, who is a widely worshipped deity in the Hindu pantheon.
Some parts of the Goa Gajah complex were not excavated until the 1950's.
We both found the site quite disappointing.2: "Gunung Kawi" or the Poet Mountain is situated in the little village of Tampaksirring,
18 km northeast of Ubud.
It was built in the eleventh century and is presumed to be the burial complex of King Anak Wungsu and his many wives.
The huge structures are carved in to the steep river side stonewalls
We climbed down 371 steps to reach the temple in the bottom of the steep valley lined with rice fields.
It is really worth to climb the steps to one of Bali's oldest and largest ancient monuments situated in lush "jungle forest".
In the bottom of the valley a river divided the site in two, which made the scenery look like in a fairytale.
To get from one side to the other, we had to walk on this stone bridge from where there were a stunning view over
the river.
The smaller complex on the south side of the river is presumed to have been built for the King's wives, while
the larger complex is thought to have been the residence of the King himself and perhaps his concubines.
3: "Tirta Empul" also situated near the little town of Tampaksirring, is one of the holiest temples in Bali and dates to year 960 ac,
but the present buildings are largely modern reconstructions.
The temple is built around hot springs, that bubble in the central courtyard.
The Balinese go there to bathe and purify themselves physically and spiritually. Water from the springs is clean and believed to have magical powers.
We did not bath with the locals, but we were welcome to do that.
But we looked around in the palace. It was beautiful, but much of it was closed to tourists.
The area around Ubud is characterized by rice paddies, which can be seen everywhere, and create an impression of greenness, which we both found startlingly beautiful.
On the way back to our hotel in central Ubud we stopped just north of the village of Tegallalang to see more rice terraces.
The place is a tourist trap, but we found it worth it to make a short stop there and take some pictures of these rice fields because they are known to be the most breathtaking in Bali.
They were stunning, but we have already seen many.
The last days spend in Ubud were relaxing days. We did not have any plans. We just walked around, were on the internet, which here in Bali is a million times better, than in Australia, went to the market and hang out around the pool. In the evenings we went to some local bars with live music.
We both like Ubud a lot.
On the day we were to leave Ubud, we were picked up at our hotel early in the morning. The very nice guys who run the hotel came with breakfast for us on our terrace. Next stop was the biggest of the 3 Gili islands east from Bali and west of Lombok. Gili Trawangan.
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