Ubud: Our first taste of Bali

When we first came to Bali, our original plan was to only stay 3 days in the city of Ubud, but once we discovered what a gem the hostel was and made friends, we couldn’t help but to extend our stay. Ubud is a beautiful city more toward the center of the island that is filled with chill vibes, yogis, and fresh food.

Our adventures in Ubud included dinning at local restaurants every night, a monkey forest, waterfalls, rice fields, hiking a volcano, and beautiful walks around town. One of our favorite walks we found was Camphun Ridge Walk. This hidden gem was just across the street from our hostel where you could walk along a ridge with stunning views and rice terraces that passes through a small town. So with the Bali sun beating down on us and beautiful views all around, we took a few house to explore the ridge.

The walk wouldn’t have been complete without stopping for some fresh passion fruit juice along the way.

Another great spot right in the heart of Ubud was the monkey forest. To get into
the forest the admission was a mere 15,000 Indonesian Rupiah, or converted about $1 US. Once inside not only was the forest covered in monkeys running around everywhere but the forest itself was gorgeous. Greenery draped everywhere with tall towering trees sometimes blocking out the sunlight.

We spent a while exploring around the forest and for a twist of entertainment, I was attacked by a money trying to get my hand sanitizer dangling off my bag.

Ok, so I guess attacked was not the correct word, but there was a time where I thought for sure the monkey was going to take a bite out of my shoulder.

Thank goodness that didn’t happen; but I was able to eventually get the monkey off of me so we could continue on our way without having to get any rabies shots.

 

Although we could have spent all of our time just hanging out in town and exploring Ubud, we did have some great adventures outside of town also.

For one day we were able to hire a personal driver for the day to take myself, Ron, and our friends Archie and Michael around for the day. I’ve never rented a driver back home for a day due to lack of funds, but I would have to say that paying 550,000 Rupiah or about $36 split between the four of us was a pretty good price for the whole day. We were also able to bargain our way down from 600,000 to 550,000, which in reality only saved a few dollars but every dollar counts when you are traveling! All it took was a handshake with our driver to seal the deal and we were off!

To start off, we gave our driver a list of the places we would like to see but our first stop was our drivers choice. At first we thought we were getting off at a rice terrace but our driver dropped us off in a small tourist trap that tried to sell us a swing on the famous “Bali swing” for 300,000!!! Definitely not an option to spend that much money for a few minutes on a swing overlooking a rice field just for a good Instagram picture; pass. The next stop on our waking tour in the tourist trap was the coffee and tea house where we thought we had to order something but then the tour guide came over with 15 samples of different teas and coffees for us to try; all for free !! Win.

We also learned more about the process of making Kopi Luwak coffee which is a speciality in Indonesia. Basically you have this animal called a Civet that eats the coffee beans, where they ferment during the digestion process, then the animal poops the beans out and the beans are boiled (to removed any germs of course 😳), dried and roasted to make the most expensive cup of coffee in the world. 💩💩Depending on where you buy a cup of this coffee it can cost you upward of $35 per cup, but here in Bali it only costs a mere $6-$7. I haven’t gotten up the courage to try it yet, but I will…

So after sampling all of the other coffees and teas, we were taken into the actual coffee and tea shop to try to buy something. Thankfully we made it out alive without spending a penny and just got the free samples! Now it was onto the rice fields.

So for me, I figured it would be a quick trip to the rice fields, we would walk around a bit, take some pictures and continue onto see our other three waterfalls; I was wrong. Over an hour in and hundreds of stairs later, we were knee-deep in rice and completely lost 😂.

You would think there would be one clearly defined path but there was not. We kept running into dead ends and one drop off where there was no way we were making it past until we decided to turn around and head for the last exit sign we saw. Even at this “exit sign” there was no clear path out. So after a few wrong turns, a couple of fellow lost friends and about an hour and a half, we finally made our way out of the rice terraces. Although the views were beautiful, we were about done with rice for the day. Now with all of us being sweaty from walking in the sun, we all pilled into the car to head to our first Waterfall!

The first Waterfall we saw was Tukad Cepung Waterfall. The Waterfall was gorgeous but my favorite part was getting there because the journey was breathtaking. We had a little hike down into a gorge first, where we walked along a little stream with rock walls and greenery on both sides of us until we had to walk under a small cave and around one more bend to find the cascading Waterfall.

We each took our turn taking pictures and marveling at the beauty before moving on to Waterfall number two.

A short car ride later and we had arrived at Kanto Lampo Waterfall. Thankfully, we didn’t have a big hike down to the falls this time just a few stairs before arriving. Now, we were in a full on river and I couldn’t have been happier to swim a bit. The falls were gorgeous again and fun to play on. The rocks at the falls had great grip on them so we got to climb up the Waterfall a little to get the best pictures.

Just as we were taking a group picture, a decent sized rock fell and hit my arm; maybe a warning that it was a good time to get off the Waterfall. After a quick swim and a few more pictures, we were onto our last Waterfall.

As soon as we arrived at the last Waterfall, Tegenungan, we realized that the other waterfalls had spoiled us because this one was loaded with tourists. It also took away from our excitement a bit that the Waterfall was roped off so you couldn’t get very close to the falls. Understandably so, because the falls were so large and powerful but we would have still liked to get closer. Even so, we were still amazed by the beauty and we waited our turn in the water until we could get a picture with the falls. The water was cool and refreshing and if you can see by the pictures, the rainbow created at the bottom of the falls from the rushing water was gorgeous.

After exploring down the river a bit we were ready to leave the tourist trap and head back to the hostel after a long day exploring. As a reward we headed to our new favorite place Umah pizza, (where our hostel host Jerry had taken us the night before and coined it as the best pizza in town) to fill our bellies because we had not eaten all day.

The pizza did not disappoint again and good conversation with friends ended the perfect day exploring.The next morning was our last in the hostel and with one more amazing breakfast we said our goodbyes to the others we had met in the hostel and to our amazing host Jerry and we jumped in a cab with Michael to start our next adventure onto Nusa Pendida!

Ubud, you were good to us. The food was delicious, the locals were friendly, and the vibes were chill.