Bouncing around South East Asia: Ubud, BALI

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After waking up around 9, enjoying fresh fruit and Nasi Campur (mixed rice, with vegetables and meat) Shane and I hopped onto the motorbikes and headed out towards the beach in search of some surfboards. After lining up a few boards for 100,000 we paddles out and the punishment began. haha not really, but it was kinda brutal. I only lasted about an hour before my arms turned to rubber, but still a blast I caught a few waves that I was able to stand up on. After heading back to our hotel and checking out we waited for the taxi to take us to Ubud.

So I had read about this drink called Arak while endlessly researching what to do once arriving in Bali. Travelling with Shane is a non-stop exploration of everything and I was a little worried this island would become the size of a sandbox in the first few days. Luckily I was wrong. Anyways back to the unofficial national drink of Bali(bootlegged); it’s made from fermenting coconuts and rice (so says the local we talked to) and traditionally male balinese get together and split a bottle among them all taking turns as the pass it around. I was interested in trying it out but surprised when the chance came up on our taxi ride from Echo Beach to Ubud. Ha our taxi driver, Beni asked if we had ever tried and was quite pleased to hear that we hadn’t and made sure that we would. We ended up stopping on the way and getting tuaca? (another Coconut drink) And Arak as well as a bunch of snacks. The first drink tuaca was milky looking and rather flavorful, I feel like I would enjoy it much better heated similar to sake. The second drink was much more familiar as it was on the stronger side, not quite as strong as straight vodka, but very close with a tropical taste in the mix. Well needless to say, the bottle was definitely finished in the remainder of our 45 minute ride. Just in time to take in the spectacular Ubud jungle scape. We hadn't made any reservations for our stay but Beni was taking care of that making calls and taking us all around town to try and find a nice place for a decent price. We settled on a nice little bungalo that was away from the strip for 300,000 a night. (roughly over $30)It was a great place, no pool but very calm and peaceful.

Shane arranged with the hotel staff to rent a couple of motorbikes for 80,000 for a bargain considering the going rate anywhere else on the island is 50,000 per bike. Mind you these rentals are for an entire day. so basically it worked out to renting 2 motor biked for around $8.50. Awesome! haha so we dropped our bags filled out minimal paperwork and then took off on our 2 wheeled torpedoes in search of food. We hadn't eaten much since breakfast. We zoomed around all of Abud, this being our second time renting motorbikes it was much more pleasant with the chaos they call driving here. Driving the wrong way on one way one lanes and such is no big deal. Found a great little BBQ Mexican place and enjoyed advocado juice drinks and pork satay with rice. Food filling our bellies and the effects of the arak wearing off we decided to head back to hotel and finish paying for our rooms. - Haha, we were doomed from the begining. So we when we had left our hotel on motorbikes we took a back alley way and just began randomly exploring. This alley spilled out onto the middle of a crowded street and since the road signs here aren't the best; you orientate yourself by the surrounding shops or features. Haha so here we are riding back the way we think we came "oh yea there's the soccer field we passed" "There's that nice billabong store" "here's the one way we drove the wrong way on" "there's the drum factory store!" "We're almost there, start looking for the alley!" and then later it turned to "Shit, we've checked every alley down this road!" "wait, did we see that drum factory store when we were in the cab?" "Everything looks different when it's dark." haha oh did I mention I was also running out of gas? haha, it was quite the adventure. We were getting desperate and began widening our search yelling at each other while speeding down road after road when we heard an english "Hey!" We looked back to see Issy, an australian girl we had met in densepar. She was staying in the same hostel as us and showed us around the first day. Pretty coincidental that we ran into her again. She said it was our yelling back and forth that caught her attention "I know those voices." haha. Anyway we picked her up and gave her a ride back to her hotel and used the wifi to locate our own place from there. It was a succeful first day in Ubud.

The next day we went exploring. First it was the Monkey forest, which was just a couple blocks from the place we were staying. It was a pretty fun place watching the monkeys (which were very bold) messing around with people and trying to take their personal belongings and jewelry. There were several temples throughout the monkey forest park so we spent about 2 hours exploring the grounds. The greenery was overwhelming and extremely refreshing. Small streams winding within and throughout all of the park. After getting back on our motor bikes we headed back to the hotel to jump on the wifi and map out a route to a waterfall that we had heard about. With a little help from the manager wayan we were off again in search of cascading water.