Burning the Inheritance

Ubud

We finished a very relaxing week in Sumbul Beach in western Bali with one last early morning beach walk, then took a long (2-1/2 hour) taxi ride to the city of Ubud located in the center of the island north of Denpasar.  Along the way, we saw some more beautiful scenery as we traveled down the coast, skirted the chaos of Denpasar, and made our way up into the foothills of the mountains.

For those of you who have not heard of Ubud (I hadn’t), it is a town of about 75,000 located amongst the rice paddies and steep ravines of the central foothills north of Denpasar and is considered to be the cultural and spiritual center of Bali.  Ubud receives more than three million foreign tourists every year and so is a predictably busy and crowded place despite its relatively small size.

We first dropped Colleen off at the Blooming Lotus Yoga Retreat on the southern end of Ubud (where her retreat was scheduled to begin that afternoon) before proceeding to the place I would be staying (no yoga for me!) in the center of downtown Ubud.

Our Place in Ubud

While awaiting Colleen’s return from her yoga retreat, I stayed at place called the Okawati Boutique Bungalows.  The Okawati was located on a small alley off of a small side street (motorbikes only) just far enough off of Monkey Forest Road (one of Ubud’s main drags) to be a nice quiet retreat from the action of Ubud.

I stayed in a very large and beautifully furnished traditional Balinese bungalow in an otherwise unoccupied wing with a private balcony with views of their gardens where I had breakfast every morning and tried to catch up on our blog. 

The Okawati also had a nice private pool surrounded by beautiful gardens and proved to be a wonderfully quiet place to work as well as to relax during the heat of the day. The staff was incredibly friendly and, although quite unobtrusive, were happy to stop by during the course of their daily chores for a little conversation.  The bungalows were named after my host Okawati who was also quite friendly and I looked forward to speaking with her every morning as she made her way around the grounds placing incense and offerings at the various shrines around the place, including one on my porch.

When I first arrived at the Okawati, I noticed a low gate at its entrance with a sign saying “Please keep closed for rabbits” which I assumed was intended to keep rabbits out of the garden.  I was surprised to find that it was actually the opposite and that Okawatie kept three large rabbits as pets which would make occasional appearances during the course of the day. (My parents had a rabbit and a good friend had one for a number of years, so I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for them!)  Perhaps most amazingly of all, the place cost only $34 per night – arguably the best rate we had seen on our entire trip given the location, quality, and spaciousness of the accommodations.

Waiting for Colleen

After being in Ubud for only a day, it became evident that the vast majority of tourists in town (as I said, 3 million a year) were day trippers and, thanks to Ubud’s somewhat remote location, this meant that pedestrian (and vehicular) traffic built up in the late morning, peaked around 2 PM, and had largely dissipated by about 4 PM.  Despite this fact, the shops and cafes tended to open early and stay open late, so I quickly discovered that early morning and late afternoon were the best times to wander and shop. 

And so, I spent my three days without Colleen exploring the town in the mornings and evenings, usually retreating to the cool and quiet of the Okawati during the heat of the day.

During my wanderings, I (surprise!) located a couple of interesting brew pubs.  The first of these was a place called “Anything Brew” a small place off Raya Road which I was kind of surprised to find deserted when I arrived there.  I started a conversation with the two young men  who were running the bar who (with all due respect) didn’t seem to know much about beer and discovered that the place had only opened a couple of weeks prior. 

The menu featured a number of their own brews and after a bit of research to determine that they could do tasters, I ordered a sampling of their beers.  Amongst them I discovered a sour ale (Canard Strawberry Gose) which I knew that Colleen would love (she had developed a real thing for sour ales on this trip) and bought out their entire inventory of six cans on my way out.

The second brew pub I discovered was a place called “Beer Brothers” which, despite being a bit off the beaten path was much busier than Anything Beer (it would be hard not to be!).  I ordered a nice IPA and some delicious quesadillas with some smothered fries on the side for good measure.  While there, I met two young women who were teaching at one of the international schools in Ubud. (It literally started with “I’ll have what he’s having”.) 

I was quite intrigued to hear what it was like living in Ubud, but they pretty quickly dispelled my idyllic notions of it.  While they enjoyed living in Ubud to a point and loved working with children, there were a lot of politics at their school (which catered mostly to wealthy foreigners) and they were dissatisfied with the educational system within which they worked (as evidenced by the fact that we helped one of them with her letter of resignation).  Always interesting to get the perspective of someone actually living there!

Yoga in Bali (Colleen)

After spending the last week pretty quietly in West Bali and being unsuccessful in tracking down any yoga options, I was happy to be heading into a 4 day yoga retreat.  I was dropped off first by our driver at the Blooming Lotus yoga retreat outside the bohemian town of Ubud, located more toward the center of the island of Bali.  Ritchard went on to the center of town and his very nice Airbnb, where I would rejoin him later. 

At the Blooming Lotus, I quickly settled into my very nice room and the retreat began with a slow and steady Hatha yoga session with our Balinese yogi, Via.  I was one of 8 total participants, with the others coming from England, two from Australia, one from Switzerland, one from Singapore, one from Taiwan and one from Seattle.  Everyone here for individual reasons that were shared as we introduced ourselves and were oriented to what to expect over the next few days.  Although the start was a bit slow, the remaining days were full of yoga, meditation and breathing focused sessions. 

The group was one that overall was fairly quiet, calm, more reflective, but also curious to learn about each other’s experiences from our different countries.  I enjoyed the conversations and most of the vegan foods.  Overall, this retreat was a really nice way for me to focus on being peaceful and in the moment, as I looked forward to rejoining Ritchard and getting on the road to meet up with the kids!

Reunited

Colleen finished up at the yoga retreat a bit early and joined me in Ubud on Wednesday December 20^th which gave us the better part of the day to see the town together.  As I noted previously, the Okawati Boutique Bungalows were located just off Monkey Forest Road, just south of Raya Road, which, together with a third road (Hanoman Road, which loops back to Monkey Forest Road at its southern end) frame downtown Ubud.  Given that 80% of Ubud’s economy is based on tourism, it’s probably not surprising to hear that each of these streets (as well as the cross streets between them) is lined with shops and cafes.

Having had three days to prepare, I proceeded to lead Colleen on a shopping extravaganza, starting with a few necessities which (happily) included wrapping paper (as we travel very light, we didn’t need much) and some good old scotch tape.  We spent the rest of the day walking up and down Monkey Forest Road including a pass by its namesake (The Monkey Forest) which Colleen was not exactly thrilled with (she doesn’t really care for monkeys), a position which was hard to disagree with given some of the rather bizarre statuary.

We picked up a couple of new swim suits (of which we were badly in need) and a beautiful set of masks (which I again forgot to photograph before packaging) from the island of Timor, the furthest east of the chain of islands which make up Indonesia.  I also picked up a cool T-shirt which I had been coveting since our arrival which featured a characterization of the Hindu god Ganesh.  I should probably add that, shopping aside and despite something rather steep hills here and there, Ubud is really a very interesting and picturesque place, a really great walking town.

As regards temples, of which there were also more than a few in Ubud and the surrounding area, I have to confess that after our time in India, Thailand, and Cambodia and the hundreds of temples we saw and visited, and despite the fact that there were many beautiful temples in the area, we were less inclined to venture out to see temples for their own sake and more inclined to take them as they came during the course of our wanderings. (This might have been different had we visited Bali at a different point in time or had more time to spend there.)

But in Ubud, there are a good number of buildings which are styled after traditional temples, but are not. These included (left to right below) the local high school, the community center, and the royal palace.

Additionally, as we had discovered in our travels to the west coast of Bali, virtually every home has one or more shrines which are somewhat like the spirit houses we had seen in our travels through Southeast Asia.  Unlike the rest of Indonesia which is primarily Muslim, most of the residents of Bali practice a form of Hinduism, and the shrines are considered to be the homes of both local spirits and of ancestors who are remembered and honored daily with the offering of small gifts (usually fruit and/or flowers) and burning of incense. 

All of the homestays also have shrines (sometimes very large ones) to the point that it is often difficult to distinguish between temples, homestays, homes, and other building types.  Even the shops in Ubud which don’t have shrines place small packets of gifts and incense on the sidewalk to start the day with good spirits, so you really have to watch your step when walking around in the morning.

The Ridge Walk

For our last morning in Ubud, we had planned on taking a well-publicized walk known as the Campuhan Ride Walk (or just “The Ridge Walk”) which starts at the Pura Gunung Lebah Temple and then follows a paved path up and along the ridge line.  Although nothing epic, it is a nice walk of about 4 kilometres out and back with some nice views of the surrounding valleys and rice fields.  What was probably most interesting about the walk was how quickly one felt completely removed from the hustle and bustle of Ubud with only a handful of hikers (at least early in the morning when we walked it).

Heading North

Having checked the Ridge Walk off our to-do list, we headed back to the Okawati to get packed up and meet our driver to head on to our last destination in Bali near a place called Lovina Beach on the north coast, where we were looking forward to seeing our kids for the first time (other than Face Time) in almost a year.