|
 We escaped Kuta and went to the more laid-back,
mountain town of Ubud. Our friend, Erin Kim, had told us about a really
pretty cafe there - the Lotus Cafe. The
Lotus Cafe has beautiful gardens, statues, and structures. It looks more like
a temple than a cafe. We also checked out the big market in Ubud and found several wonderful
cafes and restaurants. Ubud really has the
best restaurants in Bali (and you couldn't buy the same meal outside of Bali
for less)!
Our first night in Ubud, we stayed in a very charming, thatch guesthouse
in the treetops- called Suartha. It was
beautiful, but also infested with insects, mice, and roosters that seemed to
think the sun was rising every 2 hours. After a long and sleepless night, we
switched to another place - Candri
Asri. Our new room was very comfortable, mice free, relatively insect
free, and had a beautiful garden and view of a rice paddy.
 We went to a Balinese dance one evening. The costumes were very
pretty and the music / chanting was nice too ...for about 45 minutes (the
show was 1 hour long). We did our fair share of temple-touring ...there are
so many temples in Bali, you can really get templed-out after a while. We
also went to the monkey forest...where there are hundreds of monkies (and a few temples). You really have to watch
out with those monkies ...they will steal anything they can get their hands
on. We saw several monkies jump on top of people trying to get their water
bottles or any food.
 Ubud was a great place to relax...beautiful rice paddies, pretty temples, exotic fruits, fantastic restaurants - and VERY
affordable. Ubud is just about in the center of Bali, so it's a good area
to do day trips or tours from - like Gunung Kawi, Mt.
Batur, Elephant Temple, and a bunch of other temples that we can't remeber the
names of. As we were driving around our temple tours, we also saw a cremation ceremony.
| region | lodging | $US / night | rating | notes |
|---|
| Ubud | Suartha | $6.66 |  | Charming, but too many insects |
|---|
| Candra Asri | $7.77 | | Comfy room, pretty garden setting |
Copyright (c) 2001 Martha Llaneras Ficke | 
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