Last morning in our splendid villa here in Jimbaran
Better make the best of it… After all, what’s better than breakfast?

While eating we found out there had been an earthquake close to here, in the near island of Lombok. Despite being quite strong, no alerts for tsunami had been issued.

When everything was packed and ready we checked out and waited for the taxi.

To book it we used BlueBird application. BlueBird is the main taxi company and thanks to the mobile app you can check the fare for a certain ride before booking, and see the position of the cab in every instant.

The ride to Ubud took almost 1 hour and 30 minutes, for the traffic, the morphology of the territory, and the conditions of the roads. It puts everything into perspective realising that to cover only 17km it’ll take more than one hour.

On the way to Ubud the view changed from city traffic, to less and less buildings until only few some constructions could be seen, leaving space to rice fields and pieces of jungle. At least for a while. Then the urban environment came back with shorts buildings, max two stories, and traffic. We knew when we were about to reach Ubud, as the taxi started going at walking pace.

The room we rented was a couple of hundred meters north the main road of Ubud. Not very fancy as the one we had in Jimbaran, but ok for a couple of days.

After unpacking few things we went out to explore Ubud.

We walked south to the monkey forest, Ubud main attraction.

The entrance fee is 50 thousand per adult, quite high considering that monkeys are basically everywhere here in Ubud.

Inside we met (unfortunately for Antonio) many little pests.

The park is basically a fenced portion of forest where humans can interact with monkeys following few simple rules:

1. Never look the monkeys in the eyes. This may trigger an aggressive reaction.
2. Don’t wear loose items or the monkeys will take them.
3. Don’t feed the monkeys, or they will follow you. For ever!

While walking around you can see monkeys grooming, playing, running, feeding and doing other monkey things…

I tried to follow the rules but a little fella was faster than I expected.

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Apart for this little happy accident everything went smoothly. Just be careful when you walk under the threes. You may have something falling on your head. And you may not like it. 💩

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Once out we walked to a small cafe suggested by Dario to have a drink. We also enjoyed a little dessert. Absolutely refreshing!

Walking back to the hotel we stumbled into the Ubud art market. Sara went crazy and on a shopping spree berserk mode.
I must admit that is quite easy to fall for it when you can bargain on the price, already low, and bring it to almost nothing, for Western standards.

As Sara calmed down we went back exploring the city.

We found many statues, almost fell in holes on the sidewalk, watched inside private homes (their open gates were like an invitation), and met a little furry rascal.

That animal is used to create a special type of coffee beans… eating other coffee bean and then pooping them out.
Disgusting, I know. But some people likes it.

We also found an Italian restaurant. In Ubud. Serving Olive Ascolane among other stuff.

Yeah.

Sure.

You go man!

Quite tired we walked back to our room. Here we found the toilet clogged, an ant infestation, and found out that all the towels were dirty as hell.

Promptly Sara called to get the hell out of here, a refound, and looked for other hotels in the area.

Unfortunately looks like we have to spend the night here.

Let see what the night will bring.