[Bali 2013] Staying at Green Field, Ubud

Our room was near the pool

After the rest of Bobo's family flew home after the wedding, he and I travelled upwards to Ubud for the rest of the stay. I wanted a restful stay (disclaimer: I was not trying to eat, pray, love, though I did get preyed on by monkeys and mosquitoes). 

Stone Mushrooms. Why?

Our room door

The massive bedroom with no tv...

Balcony, to show you how close we were to the padi fields

The other side of the massive room

I could feel eyes boring at me

Oh there you are!

We stayed at Green Field, Ubud. The bellboy was showing us the room, which was in a separate building with its own path, though we seemed to be sharing some parts of it with a eater-prayer-lover long-term tourist  lady. Frankly the room gave Bobo the creeps (later it turned out that an iguana lived above our heads, and was probably the eyes staring at him). As for me, I was most disturbed by the fact that there was no television. But wait there was a huge cupboard in one corner of the room. When I pointed at it, the bellboy opened it and sort of like "ta-da", to my massive disappointment. It   was NOT a massive LED tv hiding behind the door but...

The only one who enjoyed himself

A bloody tiny fridge in the midst of all that balinese wood. I was like.... WTF!? The bellboy was a bit puzzled over my lack of excitement. I suppose most people who visit Ubud want to find themselves and not HBO. Later when we were visiting the heron colony, which was in the trees above a kampung (village), I noted sourly to Bobo that even the local villagers were richer than us, because they had a tv to watch.

More cam-whoring

Other than that, the place is gorgeous, and very restful with a lovely salt water pool (if I didn't recall wrongly). It also had beautiful flowers, bizarre garden ornaments and scary fauna. The only entertainment available was at the lounge near the lobby. But you could watch the ducks amble in and out of the flooded padi fields. Great consolation for me, because I liked ducks. For Bobo, it was like watching Bebek Bengil flexing and working out to meet his palate's satisfaction.

Having breakfast

"What are you staring at?" says the Squirrel

"What are you staring at?" says the iguana

I'm pretty sure there was something in this photo, that's why I took it. Nothing else special about coconuts.

There was a plum tree outside our room. I didn't realize that plums could grow in Bali!?!!!

Delicious Onion

I'd better hurry up and finish the Bali posts while I can (will explain why soon). This was the last place we ate at before leaving Bali. 

Delicious Onion is located outside our hotel (without TV, such a sin, thanks to that experience, when I ever book accomodation, I will look out for the magical word TV, after air-con *lol*). 

We experienced sweltering heat as we wandered out of the hotel at noon, searching for food before our flight in the evening (it was yet another horrific 2 hour drive to the airport, thanks to the all-too-predictable traffic jams on two lane roads). 

I had been sorely tempted by the menu when walking past. So many burgers on the menu (the fact that we eventually chose local Indonesian food on the menu is an irony lost on me). They even had motorbikes for hire, but we were too stupid to handle one (me especially), so the lady told us to return them even before we left the premises. I want to get a motorbike licence!!!

Anyway it was too hot, so we walked back and ate there. It was cooling under the makeshift shelter and we sat on a bench. I like eateries with weird ass inconsistent seating because it makes them look effortlessly cozy. I accidentally insulted the lady again when I passed her a lollipop for the little boy I saw yesterday while we were renting the bike. She said... she is a girl. OOPZ.

Since it was the last day already, we ordered some satay, ayam rice, and Peranakan pork dish (we also ordered gyoza, don't ask me why). Turns out the cafe was owned by a Singaporean. There were two doggies at the cafe. One crazy ass poodle (I think, I can't remember), which kept barking, and this cute bigger doggie which begged Bobo for food. I think he knew Bobo doesn't eat much. When I tried to walk around the table to pet him, he wandered off. So dao!

We were worried that the food would take long because the lady still had to heat the charcoal for bbqing the satay. Luckily we were just outside our hotel (the driver was bloody late in the end). I did feel a little bad that she had to stand in the harsh sunlight and handle the even harsher heat from the charcoal grill.

The rest of the staff busied (ok it was a joke, because there was no hurrying) themselves making the rest of the dishes. The gyoza was the usual pan-fried processed ones so nothing special there. The pork dish came with a clear veggie soup, i.e. veggies floating on top of a instant chicken stock (a dish ubiquitous in Bali). I was reminded of the imagery from the Endless Steppe (I read way too many books on Jewish persecution during WWII when I was a teenager) where Esther Hautzig described the nasty vegetable soup they got in the cargo cars. *shiver*

The rice in our dishes smelled pretty good but was quite wet. Probably didn't have enough time to dry after cooking yet. I liked Bobo's pork more than my chicken because I don't really like chicken breast meat (otherwise known as white meat). 

Now to think of it I kind of regretted not ordering a burger. But the place was not bad for its ambience.

A week in Bali (Day 4) - Tegalalang and Petulu

It started raining heavily during lunch and again later in the evening when we left Tegalalang. Seriously, don't bother to waste the money to enter Tegalalang. Bedugul and the other mountainous areas in Bali have rice terraces too, and the ones we saw going up Bedugul two days before were much more appealing.

We only had Petulu left. It was only 5.30pm when we left Tegalalang, so I was kind of regretting not having more places in the itinerary. Then again it was still raining so yeah, never mind. Omar said he never went to Petulu (the reason was obvious why later) with other tourists before. According to the travel guides, the Kokokan (Koko crunch - actually egrets) would fly off for the day for food (later we found out where some of them went... outside our hotel room.....) and coming back to roost at around sunset.

Flying in for a landing

Omar alighted at a booth just outside the village just like Tegalalang. So commercialized... argh. So he came back and asked us if we wanted to walk down the village which was about 800m and he could pick us up half an hour later. Or we could all sit inside the car until 6pm.

So we walked along a narrow village road (2-way!).  Little wooden shacks and tiled steps leading up to traditional homes lined the road, and we caught interesting glimpses of village life, e.g. a group of village boys gathering at one of the shacks to watch football on one CRT and play old video games on another, it kind of reminded me of my childhood, so I liked seeing that.

Village Life

Walking further in, we began to see the birds flying in and landing on their nests which were super high up in the tall trees. There were actually little warungs planted among the padi fields for you to put up your feet and enjoy the view at a less neck breaking angle.  It wasn't very easy to take photos, and being a tight pussy I did not buy a more powerful lens, and all my camera could capture were essentially tiny white long-legged things flying here and there.

kokokan nests

if you blink hard enough you can see the white birdies on the tree...

I would say it was ok, but I thought the village life was more interesting than those birds. I had more fun watching the funny ducks outside our hotel room. The tour guides painted a more intriguing imagery though: Locals sat that the birds are manifestations of souls of people killed in the aftermath of the failed Communist coup against the Indonesian government in Jakarta in 1965. Soon after some 100,000 people connected to the Jakarta coup were massacred in Bali, the egrets mysteriously appeared in Petulu in 1966.

Bebek Bengil (Dirty Duck)

Dirty Duck Diner

We continued on with being literal by having Bebek Bengil (Bebek meaning "duck"). It's heavily touted online and in travel guides that this is the most famous restaurant in Ubud. Even though I rarely eat duck nowadays ever since I decided that they were too cute, I decided to break the rule for once to try this so-called famous duck.

Beautiful garden

It is definitely an organized operation. They have the drivers drop the guests off with matching numbers, then the drivers park behind the restaurant, while the guests follow the waitress through a beautiful garden with loads of little huts. Each hut has a few tables, some even with Japanese-style sitting. Looking through the menu, we notice that they highlighted the half duck portion with a box so it was an obvious choice for us.

Menu

We thought it was a two person portion, given the price (100K rupiah!!!) but turned out it was a one person portion, according to the waitress who gave us a polite version of "WTF" face. After eating only noodles and rice over five days already, we decided to order potatoes and salad to go with the duck.

Tiny Bird, tiny portion

The duck was really crazy ass tiny, so were the potato and salad portions. And extremely dry and gamey tasting despite the vague taste of spice. I liked that there were three condiments, but they were not enough to overcome the feeling that we had been very disappointed and let down by the experience. A bit like the Pension Charlotte where we stayed at in Hakone, which was very heavily praised by another Singaporean lady but was actually not really that great.

A week in Bali (Day 4) - Yeh Pulu

I really think that Ubud is severely ruined by "Eat Pray Love"rs. It is supposed to be the cultural centre of Bali, but it is the most tourist-driven and over-commericalized area we encountered. Every bloody sight cost 15K rupiah to enter, even Yeh Pulu, which we had been conned by the travel guides as "water container" temple with intricate wall carvings. Well... we did see a short wall of carvings, but that's all.. and we didn't see where the supposed water container was. I almost thought that the water container was this statue somewhere along the path to the shrine, because on our way back an old lady with a coterie of little children (including the bad boy - see below) was praying in front of it.

The only thing interesting about Yeh Pulu was this really adorable puppy that sniffed and followed us everywhere. Unfortunately there was a very naughty boy who ran out and chased the poor doggie to stop him from following us, at one point, he even tried to step on the doggie's head. I wanted to scold the little boy but Bobo stopped me. And he stopped me from playing with the doggie. He said I would make the doggie's life more miserable, because the boy would only be more merciless.

Ok, according to "The Rough Guide to Bali & Lombok", the small spring after which the site is named (yeh meaning "holy spring" and pulu being "stone vessel" rises close to the statue of Ganesh and is sacred. The Balinese are so literal, aren't they, first Goa Gajah (meaning Elephant cave literally with its statue of Ganesh inside) then now Yeh Pulu.

Says here too that "carved away from a cliff face, the 25 metre long series of Yeh Pulu carvings are said to date back to the fourteenth or fifteenth century. they are thought by some historians to depict a five-part story and while the meaning of its story has been lost, it;'s still possible to make our some recurring characters and to speculate on the connections between them; local people, however, describe the cravings as showing daily activities from time past. I think I believe the local people more, but seriously, who pushes the cow (look at the first photo of the carved woman pushing at an animal rump)?

A week in Bali (Day 4) - Goa Gajah

We were supposed to cover around 5 places and check in at the new hotel on the 4th day, after the rest of the family had left for home. Only us and the bride's immediate family were left at Villa Chocolat, and it was coincidentally Election Day for Bali's new governor. So we had to wait until 1030hrs for pickup.

Only that the guy, Omar, showed up at 1112hrs. I was rather mad by that time, because of the number of places we wanted to cover and the fact that the sun sets at around 1800hrs in Bali this time of the year. In the end, we still managed to cover the places, because it was Election Day so everyone (except those in the service industry) had the day off so the roads were slightly less crowded.

The places we were going to cover were, Goa Gajah, Ye Pulu, Pura Tirtha Empul (yes, it came to my realization that we visited 3 Hindu temples in one day, Bobo said it was as bad as when we were in Germany and I made him cover churches all day), Petulu for the Kokokan (which I called the "koko crunch" after the popular breakfast cereal), and Tegalalang. The driver would also drive us to our new hotel for check in. Cost of this trip arranged with Sila was 450K rupiah (the man BS me and said that he gave the wrong time to the driver. I am not that stupid.)

On our way up to Ubud, we passed by the craft villages, each with their own specialties, but we didn't stop at any of the Ole Ole (souvenir shops). The family had gone for a Ubud tour while we went upwards into the north for the Air Panas and Bedugul area (way more fun, will cover later), and hated every second of it, because it was packed with factory visits and their very expensive shops. One of the aunties complained that they were selling eye-watering USD70 Batik sarongs.

Our Driver for the day, Omar, looking at his handphone

I initially concluded that Omar is a Muslim, because he didn't go with us into the temple area for the first two temples. Instead he stayed outside and puffed away or made phone calls. So unlike Made who actually bothered to suggest additional sights, and gave advice. He was chatty though, probably because he has a better command of English language after driving tourists around for 16 years, versus Made who only did 2 so far.

Overview of Goa Gajah from the stairs

We went to the loo before walking down the staircases to the temple area (one thing I have to comment, Bali is much more fat tourist friendly than Vietnam, I almost died walking along Sapa's slopes of hell, but Bali, despite the slopes, bothered to intersperse steps with flat paths or very gentle slopes, so you can catch your breath), where I stupidly sank my handphone into a bucket of water set aside for flushing the loo. I didn't notice because the bucket was touching the loo and it was my entire pocket that went into the bucket. I am not having much luck with loos, just one week before we left, I banged my head very badly against my office toilet's shelf. Massive bruising ensued.

Poor black fishies swimming like drunkards

As you can see from the photo above, Goa Gajah has two big pools, which like most Hindu temples in Bali were used by devotees to cleanse themselves (one for each gender). The ones in Goa Gajah only serve to contain fish, and for some reason, there wasn't enough water, so the poor big fish were swimming at tilted angles. Luckily for them, and unluckily for us, it rained heavily later in the afternoon.

Doesn't that opening look like it says "Who the fuck are you staring at?!"

The big deal about Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave) is its really dark and scary eponymous cave, which contains little statues of Hindu deities. We didn't know what was inside, because like I said, Omar didn't say anything, and I forgot to refer to my printed notes. So I stood in the darkness, when I heard a tourist guide (or a more hardworking driver) introducing two Caucasian tourists the deities. So I latched myself onto them and had a free lesson. As for Bobo I lost him in the darkness, and it wasn't exactly the kind of place where you should grab random limbs. When I heard him next to me (he apparently has better night vision or I was the biggest moving object in the cave), we walked along the cave again and I told him what the guide said.

checking out the carvings and waterfalls

slippery stones

So after that, we walked around, coming upon some tourists looking at some stone relics and what looked like little waterfalls.  It looked really slippery and I was reluctant to walk down into the water, when this cute little old man who looks like a little bomoh (straight out of "Eat Pray Love") wearing little wire glasses and carrying a brush made of twigs, appeared. He convinced me to walk down this slippery rock path, and showed me first a stone carving which was ??? to me, and then back all around the entire rock and water path to see another stone relic (which was actually on the right side of the carving). He pronounced excitedly "Buddha!!"

Stone carving

Between the carving and the "Buddha!!"

"Buddha!!"

I was like "本当に?!!", but I squeezed out some enthusiasm to show I too was enlightened by this magnificent piece of rock. Meanwhile Bobo ignored both of us, taking photos, and didn't even bother to walk around the entire rock to see the carving. When we met back with him at the stone steps, the little wizened old man suddenly reached out a palm and said in a very business tone "tip."

I looked at Bobo, who reached into his pocket and gave the old man enough money to go to the loo (2K standard price for loo at all public sights in Bali). We ran off before he expressed pleasure in that he too could now go to the loo.

We walked around some more, but it wasn't very exciting so we returned because we still had other places to see. We did chance upon another little old man near a pond beside more stone relics, looking exactly like the little old man we left behind.

A week in Bali - Background story

It's been quiet here for a while because I was rushing my work in time for my week off in Bali. Was there to attend a family wedding as well as some R&R.

First Day - R&R

2nd Day - North Bali (Bedugul, Singaraja)

3rd Day - Sukawati & shopping

4th Day - Wedding

5th Day - Ubud (fuck you, Eat Pray Love for ruining Ubud)

6th Day - Ubud (Monkey Sanctuary and walk around)

7th Day - Come home.

2nd Day was the highlight of the entire trip, though the wedding venue offered some really awesome views too. Will talk more later. Tons of washing to do...