Rice Fields outside of Ubud

During our trip to Bali, we wanted to explore some of the island in addition to enjoying the great resort where we were staying.  During one of our days, we decided to take a day trip to Ubud, the cultural center of Bali.  Again, the impetus for this day trip was the book, Eat, Pray and Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Her time in Bali was spent near Ubud and she described the area in great detail.  From visiting the medicine man, Ketut Liyer, to riding her bike around the vast farm land, her description of Ubud made it sound very enticing to visit.  For transportation, we were able to hire a private driver that our hotel had contracted.  This option ended up being very reasonable and gave us flexibility to plan our day accordingly.

Crowded driving in Bali

Upon venturing away from Jimbaran, we progressed toward Ubud, which is located more inland.  Although the distance from our resort to Ubud was not great, we discovered that driving in Bali is not easy.  The constant zinging of motor bikes past our van gave us first glimpse that we were really in South Asia.  Although the island of Bali is not that large, the heavy traffic was chaotic and made us glad that we had hired a driver instead of renting a car.

Motorbikes are the transportation of choice in Bali

We also soon realized that Bali is densely populated, with over 4.2 million residents living on the island.  You think of Bali as this serene, peaceful island but that is not exactly the case.  Sure there is beautiful landscape, but the cities are densely populated and there is no shortage of energy.  After over an hour of driving, we made it out of the capital of Denpasar and passed closer to Ubud.  During our first stop, we entered a Balinese Hindu Temple.

Entrance to a Balinese Hindu Temple

Unbeknownst to many, the primary religion in Bali is Balinese Hinduism unlike the rest of Indonesia which is primarily Muslim.  Once we reached Ubud, the expectation of this mystical place that Elizabeth Gilbert described did not really coincide with what we observed.  Ubud has become a busy, touristy city.  In fact, we really didn’t spend much time in the city of Ubud as there wasn’t much to see in our opinion.  Once we got more outside of Ubud, we did encounter some beautiful farm land.

Farm Land outside of Ubud

However, the highlight of our day trip to Ubud was visiting the Sacred Monkey Forest.  The forest and temple complex houses hundreds of monkeys that are accustomed to visitors that are allowed to feed the monkeys bananas.

Sacred Monkey Forest

The monkeys were very aggressive and didn’t shy away from human contact, especially if there was a chance of food.  Although we chose not to feed any of the monkeys, we thoroughly enjoyed watching the monkeys vie for their next meal.  Overall, we enjoyed our day trip to Ubud but we didn’t spend enough time there for it to become this mystical place that Elizabeth Gilbert describes.

Monkey opening a backpack looking for a banana