We then walked for about three hours through the rice fields. It was a beautiful day, the first sun we'd seen since we arrived, so timing was perfect. (Doing this walk in the rain would be a total drag.) Like the rest of Asia, rice is king, and the vast majority of the population grows rice for a living. In mountainous areas like Bali, rice growing is impossible, so the mountains are carved with terraces to produce the flat fields needed for rice growing. While the terraces therefore serve a practical purpose, they're also very pretty, and make for a beautiful walk.

At the end of our walk, the hotel car picked us up to take us to a picnic lunch. We were supposed to have our picnic beside a lake, but when we got there there were some locals already eating there. The driver clearly wasn't keen on our mingling with the locals, so he sped off to "a nicer place". This ended up to be a cement slab in the middle of nowhere, I think possibly at the edge of the local junkyard. So not the best end to our exploration of the local countryside, but I guess it's important to see all aspects of the local culture when on holiday-NOT! (haven't done that in about fifteen years, felt good).

On our last day in Ubud we got up early to visit the local market, then took a long trek through the very pretty rice terraces around Ubud. The market would no doubt appeal to many tourists, and it's quite lively, but it's not much different from the markets in every village in Asia, so we didn't linger. But we did buy some local food for an impromptu breakfast, and fortified ourselves for the long walk ahead.

Last stop for the day's visit was the nearby Pura Suraswati, built around the same time as the Royal Palace. Since Hinduism has thousands of gods it's really difficult to keep all the stories straight for the layman. It also accounts for the profusion of temples across Bali, since each village will have many temples dedicated to many different gods. This is dedicated to Suraswati, who is a goddess of water. Hence, the temple is built around a lotus pond, its nicest feature.

Our next stop was at the Ubud Palace. One attitudinal adjustment to make when visiting Bali is to downscale your expectations for manmade attractions, while upsizing your natural beauty expectations. There are a few special temples, usually in the water, but by and large the sheer number of temples, thousands and thousands of them, means they're bound to disappoint in size and grandeur. And the palaces are particularly depressing, especially because many of them are still lived in by royal descendants, but seem like little more than slums. Ubud Palace is thankfully well maintained and I don't think anyone is still living there, but it's small size is startling. The complex was built toward the end of the nineteenth century for the Sukawati royal family. It seems like a middle class house around a small garden, although the art and tropical surroundings are very nice. Every night they have a classical dance exhibition, but during the day you're free to pop in and take a quick spin around the courtyard.

There are a couple of sights in Ubud, chiefly the royal palace and some temples. But these are far from must-see sights, and the chief joy of Ubud is just walking about the streets, past all sorts of cafes, small inns and especially art galleries. Almost everyone in Ubud is either making art, or selling it, to the point where the sheer volume of art produced gets to be pretty overwhelming. We looked through some of the galleries, but couldn't really get excited enough to make a purchase. But we enjoyed the walkabout and halfhearted shopping nonetheless.

I'm sure I'm making most of this up because for some reason my notes are pretty thin from this trip, but I'm pretty sure that we went into the town of Ubud and spent the rest of the day there. Ubud is considered the cultural capital of Bali, mainly because the southwest, where most people live, is completely overrun by hotels and development. But Ubud is far from an untouristed city, and in fact is almost entirely given over to tourism. But it's still a very attractive, laid back place to explore. As I said earlier, the whole town is built from a very mellow yellow stone, which gives the town a real warmth, even in the rainy weather we were experiencing. Our first stop was for lunch at Cafe Wayan, one of the most beautifully situated restaurants I've been too. It's spread around a very lush garden, with lots of Balinese art strewn about. Unfortunately food amounts to not much more than nasi goreng, but it's a lovely place to spend a couple hours. (10-16-7).

Amandari is just outside of Ubud, and located along the edge of a ravine. It's got 30 villas built like a Balinese village, with high walls surrounding each village and making the place a bit unwelcoming to walk around. There are three Aman resorts in Bali, and we were making a circuit of them to see the whole island. I think of the Amanpuri in Phuket as the quintessential Aman, and, using that as the standard, each Aman in Bali is a bit off. It's still a great way to see the island, but they need to make the hotels more homey. Getting back to the Amandari, the big plus is the warm yellow stone that the whole complex (and in fact all of Ubud) is built from, and the great location on the edge of a ravine. The infinity pool along the edge of the ravine adds touch of drama to the place. Service is very good, as expected at an Aman, although the Balinese will never compete with the Thais in this category. The rooms are huge, but I didn't like the way they were furnished. The big turnoff was the marble floor, which is unwelcoming and seems totally out of place in Bali. Unfortunately these floors would haunt us throughout the trip. The luxury competition in Ubud is the Four Seasons and the Begawan Giri, which has only about ten rooms and is supposed to be amazing. Amandari overall 7 (Room: 7, Facilities: 6, Service: 8, Wow: 2, (the view from the pool).

84. Ubud

The trip from the airport to Amandari took over an hour, despite the relatively short distance. There's only one street from Denpasar to Ubud, and it is a beehive of activity. The entire street is lined with a virtually unbroken stretch of shops and temples, with the shops mostly selling carvings and offerings for the temples (and tourists). The business of the villages spills out onto the street, and much of the street traffic is engaged in drive by shopping as well, so traffic really crawls through the atmospheric chaos.

Bali is the lone Hindu outpost in overwhelmingly Muslim Indonesia. Indonesia is littered with Hindu temples, as it was once completely Hindu, but several great Muslim empires succeeded in throwing out the previous Hindu rulers, and the Hindu hierarchy fled to little Bali, where it has practiced its confusing religion more or less unhindered ever since. Despite being Hindu, it was clear that tourism had taken a beating after 9/11, and all the hotels we stayed at were virtually empty. Shortly after we left there were terrorist bombings in Bali itself, killing lots of tourists, which I'm sure didn't help boost tourism either. (More pics of the Amandari).

Bali March '02

We did our honeymoon in reverse order, and decided to honeymoon in Bali three months before our upcoming wedding. We had to make a few last minute adjustments since we were scheduled to arrive on Nyepi, which I'm sure you all know is a big no-no. In case you aren't familiar with Bali's 612 annual holidays, Nyepi is the Balinese new year. The week before is full of noise and firecrackers, potbanging etc. to drive out all the evil spirits from the island. But on the actual day of Nyepi, all is silent, as the people hope to convince any remaining spirits that the island is empty so they best move on. That means no flights in or out of the island, which is just as well, because even if we could have arrived as intended, we'd be locked in our hotels since nobody can move around the island that day either. Sounds like a dreadful new year celebration.

Arrived the day after Nyepi to find the island in full swing. It's a really packed island, about three million people on a small, mostly uninhabitable island. The airport is located in Denpasar, the capital, in the far southwest corner of Bali. We were ending our trip in this area, but for now we headed north to Ubud, in the island's center. (Photos are of Amandari, our hotel in Ubud).