Yikes, can you imagine Monkey Forest Rd without electricity? If not, then you can relate to my surprise when we drove down it in July after 23 years away. Mostly, central Ubud reminded me of the Gold Coast. It took a while to get used to it. The trip down from Lovina was via Kintamani, which was great for showing active volcanoes and the driver was able to tell the kids about being up there when one last exploded: hearing the noise first etc. We stopped at one of the tourist restaurants with a buffet, despite my concerns (by the way, we bargained the price down to about 1/2 what's displayed and 1/2 of that again for the kids). The views were awesome and a great place to further explain volcanoes to the kids as it was easy to see the flows.
I had a great time practising my bargaining at the fruit stalls on both sides of the mountain range and the driver had a hoot, too. We stopped pretty much every time we saw one.
He was glad to get fresh fruit for his coming ceremonies (he is also a priest). The passionfruit were just coming in to season and they are my favorite fruit. i bought a kilo a day when they were available, and a lot more on the way to ubud.
Coming in to ubud the streets were lined for kilometres with souvenir shops which apparently sell their wares to foreign businesses. my kids couldn't understand why so many painted wooden giraffes are for sale. we must have seen tens of thousands of the things. i had no answer.
For some reason i had decided the kids needed a swiming pool in Ubud, which led to a long tiring afternoon searching for accommodation in the busy season. We ended up at the Sri Ratih, which is in the outskirts of Ubud in either Camplungan or Penestaran, depending on whom you talk to. It's about 20 years old and slowly being refurbished. Hotels which have seen better days suit our budget well and we had a room for with an extra 2 mattresses on the floor and a lovely big breakfast for 400,000rp after a little bargaining. The staff here were awesome: well trained and friendly. The grounds were immaculate. It was here that i started to use a new criteria for hotel standards: the grace and efficiency with which staff deal with children's vomit. Sri Ratih is a 5 star venue on that front.btw: eating at tourist buffets is in iself a recipe for disaster, food sitting around in the heat for hours and maybe from yesterday.
The hotel also had oodles of hot water for our outside bath. bliss coming from water restrictions.
As for the pool: the kids went in once only as it was too cold :). Nevermind, we would never have found this place otherwise. The buildings don't look architectually beautiful from the outside, but it was an easy and comfortable place to stay for a few days.
more about ubud next time