The place I booked in Ubud had a web site that said something about airport transfers, so I wrote them to see whether they'd come and get me from Denpasar. They didn't show, so I went to them by taxi.
I sat and waited while they tried to work out whether they had any record of who I was. The hotel had an open reception area with a pole in one corner supporting an empty throne, on which were offerings of food and flowers in tiny woven trays. As I watched, a fat brown rat stole a piece of bread from one and hauled it up towards the roof. And it turned out that, no, they had no idea who I was. But they did have a free bungalow. The operation seemed pleasant enough, and I was ready to write off the rat as some kind of exotic local rodent, so I took it.
It was a nice place. There was a pool out front. On one side, there was a strip of agricultural land that had somehow been overlooked by bungalow builders. On the other, there was a construction site where bungalow builders were building bungalows. Around back, there was a tiny patio with a five-inch spider sitting in the middle of a web; it had a pattern on its back like a death's head wearing a pylon as a hat, in case that helps to identify it (for me, it was enough to know that it was a really big spider that I wasn't going to mess with). There was also a ten-inch lizard that would to cling motionless to the underside of the thatch roof all day. On the day I left, it was joined by a second, identical lizard.
Ubud's partway up the slope of Bali's central mountains. It's crammed with extraordinary temples. But around the temples, it's a tourist town like most others: Convenience stores, travel agencies, and shops selling either sleeveless Bintang shirts (and similar things) or banners that say 'yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift' (and similar things). Earnest singer-songerwriter music floats out of organic cafes. I went to one of the cafes. Expats kept coming in and recognizing each other; they were all yoga instructors or in allied trades (the first man to sit down was a professional yoga studio designer). They were all thin, tanned, fortyish and gratingly tranquil.
The sidewalks in Ubud are covered storm drains. In areas, there are sections missing, so the sidewalk will occasionally just stop and there'll be a four foot drop into a trench of slimy water. At night, the locals hang out on the sidewalks or sit in front of shops and play chess. Balinese chess is a three man game: One stares at the board, and two make jokes and laugh and laugh and laugh.
The main attraction in Ubud, more or less, is the Monkey Forest Sanctuary -- a square of forest with three small temples inhabited by a band of macaques. The macaques have a reputation for theft. Just outside the entrance, a big male was eating a bag of potato chips. Inside, they were everywhere, fighting in the underbrush and snoozing on the low walls along the path. Baby macaques have mohawks. One of them had stolen a necklace with a big wooden crucifix on it and was swinging it around and trying to pull it apart. The tourist scene in the monkey temple was a bit ugly. It's the one attraction in Ubud that draws people up from Kuta, the beach town of the South, which has its own reputation for being full of simian reprobates (mostly Australian).
I did a walk through the rice paddies around the town. It was a bit hard to find where it began; I blundered onto the grounds of a huge private home, and a man and four large dogs came out to see if they could help me with anything. When I could make myself heard over the dogs, I explained why I was there, and the man turned out to be very understanding, and he was happy to direct me to the footpath. I went back to where the path had divided and took the other branch, pausing for a second this time to admire the prominent signs reading 'Private Residence,' Beware of Dogs,' and 'Footpath This Way'.
The path went through 8 kilometers of rice paddies. People were hacking at stalks with rusty sickles or working with hoes. One was pushing an ancient gas-powered tilling machine through a lake of mud. The tourist traffic had led a couple of them to diversify into posing for photographs for money. I made way for motorcycles and Balinese women carrying preposterously huge loads on their heads. Every couple of hundred metres, there was a stall selling cold drinks and paintings, and the halfway point was marked by an organic farm and a slick-looking organic cafe -- certainly the work of the same stringy, wealthy, middle-aged hippies I'd shared a communal table with back in town. The cafe also marked a turning that led back to town; I stayed on the path, and from then on I saw no other tourists.
After maybe two hours' walk, there was a little stall off to the right of the path and about five feet below it. It was a rotten wooden stand, like Lucy Van Pelt's psychiatry booth if it had been buried in peat for a thousand years, and sitting behind it in a kind of trance there was a Balinese man with a cooler of cold drinks and little bags of snacks. I stopped for some water and a cola and wondered whether what he was doing could possibly be worth it. There was almost no traffic on the path, and he wasn't easy to spot from it. He was also supervising three ducks and a chicken, but they didn't seem to need a lot of management: The chickens were huddled under a bush, and the duck was keeping busy by climbing up the mud ramp to the path, glissading back down, and waddling up again.
The return loop ran along a paved road, mostly private homes and painters' studios. The walk back towards town would have been monotonous, except for a series of hostile dogs and the knowledge that there's rabies in Bali.
I sat and waited while they tried to work out whether they had any record of who I was. The hotel had an open reception area with a pole in one corner supporting an empty throne, on which were offerings of food and flowers in tiny woven trays. As I watched, a fat brown rat stole a piece of bread from one and hauled it up towards the roof. And it turned out that, no, they had no idea who I was. But they did have a free bungalow. The operation seemed pleasant enough, and I was ready to write off the rat as some kind of exotic local rodent, so I took it.
It was a nice place. There was a pool out front. On one side, there was a strip of agricultural land that had somehow been overlooked by bungalow builders. On the other, there was a construction site where bungalow builders were building bungalows. Around back, there was a tiny patio with a five-inch spider sitting in the middle of a web; it had a pattern on its back like a death's head wearing a pylon as a hat, in case that helps to identify it (for me, it was enough to know that it was a really big spider that I wasn't going to mess with). There was also a ten-inch lizard that would to cling motionless to the underside of the thatch roof all day. On the day I left, it was joined by a second, identical lizard.
Ubud's partway up the slope of Bali's central mountains. It's crammed with extraordinary temples. But around the temples, it's a tourist town like most others: Convenience stores, travel agencies, and shops selling either sleeveless Bintang shirts (and similar things) or banners that say 'yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift' (and similar things). Earnest singer-songerwriter music floats out of organic cafes. I went to one of the cafes. Expats kept coming in and recognizing each other; they were all yoga instructors or in allied trades (the first man to sit down was a professional yoga studio designer). They were all thin, tanned, fortyish and gratingly tranquil.
The sidewalks in Ubud are covered storm drains. In areas, there are sections missing, so the sidewalk will occasionally just stop and there'll be a four foot drop into a trench of slimy water. At night, the locals hang out on the sidewalks or sit in front of shops and play chess. Balinese chess is a three man game: One stares at the board, and two make jokes and laugh and laugh and laugh.
The main attraction in Ubud, more or less, is the Monkey Forest Sanctuary -- a square of forest with three small temples inhabited by a band of macaques. The macaques have a reputation for theft. Just outside the entrance, a big male was eating a bag of potato chips. Inside, they were everywhere, fighting in the underbrush and snoozing on the low walls along the path. Baby macaques have mohawks. One of them had stolen a necklace with a big wooden crucifix on it and was swinging it around and trying to pull it apart. The tourist scene in the monkey temple was a bit ugly. It's the one attraction in Ubud that draws people up from Kuta, the beach town of the South, which has its own reputation for being full of simian reprobates (mostly Australian).
I did a walk through the rice paddies around the town. It was a bit hard to find where it began; I blundered onto the grounds of a huge private home, and a man and four large dogs came out to see if they could help me with anything. When I could make myself heard over the dogs, I explained why I was there, and the man turned out to be very understanding, and he was happy to direct me to the footpath. I went back to where the path had divided and took the other branch, pausing for a second this time to admire the prominent signs reading 'Private Residence,' Beware of Dogs,' and 'Footpath This Way'.
The path went through 8 kilometers of rice paddies. People were hacking at stalks with rusty sickles or working with hoes. One was pushing an ancient gas-powered tilling machine through a lake of mud. The tourist traffic had led a couple of them to diversify into posing for photographs for money. I made way for motorcycles and Balinese women carrying preposterously huge loads on their heads. Every couple of hundred metres, there was a stall selling cold drinks and paintings, and the halfway point was marked by an organic farm and a slick-looking organic cafe -- certainly the work of the same stringy, wealthy, middle-aged hippies I'd shared a communal table with back in town. The cafe also marked a turning that led back to town; I stayed on the path, and from then on I saw no other tourists.
After maybe two hours' walk, there was a little stall off to the right of the path and about five feet below it. It was a rotten wooden stand, like Lucy Van Pelt's psychiatry booth if it had been buried in peat for a thousand years, and sitting behind it in a kind of trance there was a Balinese man with a cooler of cold drinks and little bags of snacks. I stopped for some water and a cola and wondered whether what he was doing could possibly be worth it. There was almost no traffic on the path, and he wasn't easy to spot from it. He was also supervising three ducks and a chicken, but they didn't seem to need a lot of management: The chickens were huddled under a bush, and the duck was keeping busy by climbing up the mud ramp to the path, glissading back down, and waddling up again.
The return loop ran along a paved road, mostly private homes and painters' studios. The walk back towards town would have been monotonous, except for a series of hostile dogs and the knowledge that there's rabies in Bali.
