24 Hours in Ubud

Arriving in Bali after Singapore was a breath of fresh air — literally. Indonesia is the least hot and humid of the countries we’ll be visiting since it’s their winter, and I was thrilled to not be sweating out of every pore.

We headed straight to Ubud after landing in the evening. It was about an hour car ride to our hotel, and I experienced for the first time the chaos that is Indonesia’s driving system. Motorbikes with up to three people on them (including toddlers standing on the floorboard holding the handlebars!) zoomed past us. The bikes moved like a school of fish as they weaved amongst the few cars. Honks were commonplace to warn others of merges or simply to announce their presence. I felt like I was in Fast and Furious as our unfazed driver narrowly missed hitting multiple bikes. It was a relief to arrive at our hotel and receive our welcome juice. I’d heard so much about Bali Belly (aka gastro) and general advice to avoid the drinking water and low quality food that I’d initially planned to avoid fruit, ice, meat, and anything being served off the street. Once I realized it was guava, however, I immediately abandoned all plans and drank the entire glass in one gulp, which shows the extent of my willpower.

Our stay in Ubud was brief. The inland town is well known for its rice terraces, monkey sanctuary, and yoga centers. We prioritized three things during our one full day there:

• The Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary
• The Campuhan Ridge Walk
• The Ceking Rice Terrace

First stop was the sanctuary, which was absolutely overrun with long-tailed macaques. They’re not very big, but they are extremely bold and will charge you for any reason. The sanctuary workers advise you not to look them in the eye. I took this rule very seriously much to Matt’s amusement. We saw too late the sign to avoid bringing in food or water; one alpha monkey tried to battle Matt for our water bottle. The best part were the babies, who enjoyed trying to crawl up women’s skirts and stealing shoes. I took about 100 more photos than I needed to and left the sanctuary ready for my first juice of the day.

At lunch, I was surprised to discover that the Indonesian food options were mostly western. At first, I thought this was unique to Bali, but we’d come to find that almost every restaurant in Indonesia predominantly serves pizza, pasta, and avocado toast. After eating, we hiked the Campuhan Ridge Walk, which was only about a mile long with a temple and some food stalls at the top of the ridge. We sweat so much on our way up that we figured we’d earned another juice. We got banana and dragonfruit smoothies with a view, which we enjoyed until I got chased out by a very persistent hornet.

The rice terraces were a bit of a drive away but the views were worth it. There were swings everywhere as locals tried to lure tourists into paying for the perfect Instagram picture. We decided to skip the swings and instead wandered along the tiny paths lining the hillside terraces. I’m not a particularly fast walker, but there are two situations in which I will suddenly develop the fast walking skill of an Olympian: when I’m late for my flight, and when there are scary bugs. Along the terraces, there were so many massive hornets that Matt could barely keep up with me as I sprinted to ensure zero contact. At this point, I was realizing what a questionable choice a bug-fearing woman such as myself had made in backpacking across Asia for several months. We ended our visit with our third smoothie of the day (sorry, Mum) because sugar doesn’t count on vacation.

We had dinner that night at a casual restaurant near our hotel, where we were pestered all evening long by the restaurant cat who acted like it had never eaten a day in its life. I tried mie goreng, a noodle dish with a fried egg on top, for the first time. (Note: it’s delicious.) As we watched the sun set behind the hills, I realized that I had officially been to 21 countries. It’s a bucket list item of mine to visit 30 countries by 30. This trip should take me to 28 if we hit all nine countries as planned.

Ubud ended up being a fun stopover on our journey to the islands off the coastline. It boasts a hippy culture and jungle scene that stands out from Canggu or Uluwatu’s beach club vibes. It was a gentle introduction to Indonesia for me, and I was grateful we visited a more populated area before heading to the lesser-frequented islands. We’d return to Bali in a couple of weeks, but for now it was goodbye Bali, hello Lombok!