Ubud

We had a shuttle from the coast of Bali into Ubud. Ubud is known for its appearance in Eat Pray Love where Julia Roberts’ character “like totally finds herself”. We were staying in a nice home stay with a big double bed, a slight way out of the centre. We rented a motorbike and biked to a number of different destinations around Ubud including the sacred monkey forest, where monkeys roam freely:

We explored the beautiful rice terraces:

A wonderful cooking class which involved going to the local market, a local coffee plantation and the a 3 hour class where we made 7 different dishes. A tofu, tempeh and banana curry, tofu skewers, fried tempeh in a sticky sweet sauce (tempeh manis), a traditional salad, steamed tofu in banana leaves, gado gado (vegetables and egg in a peanut sauce) and then a coconut milk and sweet potato and banana desert.

We ate at a number of different vegetarian restaurants but none of the food was incredible. However, when we stumbled across a lady selling street food – it was great – tofu and rice (which is compressed and kept fresh by being wrapped in banana leaves). The portion was enough to keep us full and all for a fraction of the price of restaurant meals. We had just come to the conclusion that food in Indonesia is much more expensive than other parts of Southeast Asia but then we discovered the street food. That said, the street food vendors, in the parts of Indonesia we visited, are few and far between.
On our last day we treated ourselves to a spa afternoon with a deep tissue massage and a pedicure to treat our worn out bodies and feet. It was a lovely end to an incredible trip.