Ubud, Bali

From Ubud

It’s difficult to know where to start when trying to describe Ubud, so I will start at the beginning. We took the ferry from Java to Bali. This, as might be expected, was a rather shabby vessel but the journey was only about 20 minutes (plus another 30 minutes at the other end waiting for a jetty to become free), so no great problem there. We were then met by a car from our hotel and taken on the three hour drive to Ubud. Right from the start, it was as if we were in a different country, which in effect Bali is. The villages we passed though on the way, and the houses they contained, were all much neater and generally more attractive than anything we had encountered in Java. The Hindu temples that are a feature of most Balinese family compounds did much to contribute to the overall picturesque effect.

Bali is largely known as a tourist destination, with a lot of commercial hotel and nightclub development in the resort of Kuta on the southern tip of the island. However, there is another much more laid back side to Bali to be found in the villages in the island’s heartland. Ubud is one such village, located in the middle of Bali amongst the padi fields. It seems that Ubud was ‘discovered’ about thirty years ago by some western travellers who were attracted to its tranquility and the flourishing ethnic culture and art scene that was already established there. Since then Ubud has expended as a tourist destination, with many hotels, spas, and restaurants being built in the intervening years. However, it has managed to retain its charm, and the new additions are interspersed with the original family temples and most importantly, all the buildings along the few main streets that define Ubud back onto working padi fields. Our hotel was a case in point (actually not really a hotel, more a collection of bungalows), with our room overlooking an expanse of padi fields, where we could see the villages going about their business of harvesting rice and tending their flocks of padi ducks. The only sound to be heard at night is the quacking of the ducks before they go to sleep, followed by the croaking of the toads. The end result is probably as near to paradise as one could hope for.