Ubud, Bali: Volcanoes and Offerings and Monkeys, oh my!

Dear Friends,

After our unexpectedly interesting overnight layover in Singapore, we made it to Bali!

Bali, for those who don’t know, is an island in the country of Indonesia. On the island of Bali, you’ll find many towns and villages.

We visited two villages, Ubud and Cangguu, and one additional small island off the east coast, Nusa Lembongan.

Ubud, of Eat Pray Love fame, was our first stop.

Pete’s Travel Diary

Bali

Indonesia is another predominantly Islamic country; however, the island of Bali, and Balinesian culture itself, is something special and unique on its own. Drawing on Buddhist and Hindu influences in addition to Bali’s own pantheon of gods, the Balinesians have an excitingly special belief system in place revolving around daily offerings, ancestral shrines, and ceremonial dances. The most prominent dance represents the battle between Barong, the King of spirits and of all that is good, and the queen of demons, Rangda.

You can't walk more than a few feet in Ubud without running into a temple.

Traveling around Bali you will notice small offerings, often a leaf folded into a small box/dish holding a bit of sticky rice, flowers, fruit, candies, and incense. These offerings are commonly seen in the streets but can be found on all corners of a property, on the trees, on the DVD player, or even on a motorbike. It all depends on what needs to be blessed at certain times of the day/month/year.

To answer your question, yes, incense can catch things on fire. One individual in Canggu (pronounced Chang-goo) informed me that incense recently caught a family’s ancestral shrine on fire, which was interpreted as the ancestors being angry.

If you see offerings on the street, don’t step on them or disturb them. While it is unlikely the person making the offering would make a scene, it is still incredibly rude. We saw many tourists not paying attention which was unfortunate.

Most offerings were sitting in the middle of the street. This was an unusually large collection.

What's the point of learning to play Hopscotch as a kid if you can’t dodge sacred offerings every so often?

Mt. Batur

For those who can master themselves and wake up at two in the morning for a spot of adventure, it is worthwhile to arrange a guided trip to volcanic Mt. Batur for a sunrise hike ($113 at Get Your Guide for two people after applying a discount code). We were picked up at oh-dark-thirty and arrived at the base of the mountain before 4:00 AM. The hike is approximately 2 hours, longer depending on how often you need to break to catch your breath.

(Interruption from Perry: Is that a comment about how often I had to stop to catch my breath, Pete? As you know, I took my role as the group’s official break requester very seriously. Had I not requested so many breathers, our French hiking companions would have perished. And your wife would have, too. Okay, carry on with the story, Pete.)

Also called Gunung Batur, here you can find a powerful, fiery, sunrise over the ocean. Slowly the light reveals the enormous caldera lake at the base of the mountainside.

Steam emanates from cracks at the peak of Mt. Batur as a reminder of the last eruption in the year 2000. The tremendous crater surrounding the peak is the remains of a collapsed volcanic dome (a caldera) from the largest eruption in the 1800s. This eruption may have been one of the largest in documented history.

There are numerous agrarian villages surrounding the volcano within the collapsed caldera. Many of the locals guide tourists and hikers to the top of the volcano to supplement their villages’ agricultural income. To hike to the top you are required to hire a guide, and it is worthwhile as you will be provided a walking stick, a mountaintop breakfast (oranges, banana sandwich, hardboiled eggs, etc.), as well as safe assistance hiking the mountainside.

The locals make the hike look easy but it is a moderately difficult and very steep hike. If you are not used to hiking, plan to take your time and possibly be late for the sunrise. If you don’t make it to the best view at the peak, there is a sunrise viewing station midway. The children who play at the top of the volcano scramble up and down the volcano making the hike look even easier while making hikers and tourists feel that much older. (There’s a reason they call baby goats “kids.”)

The trip down is perhaps more treacherous as the ground is crumbly and the sand will give away at times. Perry slipped onto her butt multiple times on the way down, and even I felt unstable on the downhill at times. Wear good hiking shoes or boots, and for those newer to hiking, I would recommend good ankle-supported boots.

Bali, Indonesia as well as many of the surrounding islands stretching from Japan to as far as Hawaii are renowned for their volcanic activity. The entire region is prime for volcano tourists who get their thrills from these remnants of primordial fire. Of the volcanoes that we have seen, I think we both agree that Mt. Batur still has the best sunrise.

Perry’s Travel Diary

After Mt. Batur: Hot Springs and Coffee

Our Mt. Batur booking included a post-hike visit to a hot spring. When booking, this sounded like a great idea. Who doesn’t want to soak their tired muscles in a natural jacuzzi?

In reality, I was so tired after nearly sliding to my death on the side of Mt. Batur (and waking up at two in the morning for the pleasure of doing so) that entering the hot springs made me incredibly nauseous. (Note that this was the second time I was nauseous that day, the first occurring after our very windy drive to the base of the mountain.) I was only able to tolerate the water for about 10 minutes before stumbling to nap uncomfortably on the floor of a bamboo cabana.

The hot springs were, objectively, very pretty. I would just recommend visiting them on a separate tour after you’ve taken a nap.

All Mt. Batur hikes also stop at a coffee and tea farm on your way home. Although it’s obvious the tours get some sort of kickback for bringing you here, I was pleasantly surprised by our tour. They give you a large number of free samples to try, and all were delicious. If you’re bringing gifts home for friends, this was not a bad place to get something.

My snarky comments aside, I do wholeheartedly recommend the Mt. Batur hike, even if you’re not in as good of shape as Pete. The sunrise was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and the tremendous sense of accomplishment as you stand over the caldera is not bad, either.

Pete after Perry shows the French tourists mercy.

Monkey Forest Ubud

To round out our time in Ubud, Pete wanted to visit the Monkey Forest as the other half of his birthday present. (Mt. Batur was the first half.)

The Monkey Forest is definitely a tourist attraction, and I am often wary of animal-themed tourist attractions. That said, the Monkey Forest seemed like a pretty great place to be a monkey. They were well-fed and studied by a variety of researchers. There was even a monkey hospital.

When you enter the monkey forest, the staff warns you to make sure your belongings are securely zipped inside your bag. The monkeys will steal anything that they think might be food, and you are not supposed to feed them. I quickly stashed my umbrella and water bottle inside my bag.

We had just walked inside and were admiring the monkeys - young, old, and mothers - when I suddenly felt a strong tug on my bag. I turned around expecting to see Pete.

It was not Pete. It was a monkey - a large monkey - stealing a wet wipe out of the bottom of my water bottle pocket.

I had completely forgotten about the hand wipe I had at some point been given on a bus. It was shoved in the bottom of the pocket, out of sight, out of mind.

The monkey acted like the wet wipe was the most important thing he had ever owned. He quickly opened the plastic wrapper (which we were able to collect and discard in a trash can) and proceeded to lick the wet wipe. No one was getting it out of his hands.

I don’t quite know what happened next, because we decided to leave the little klepto to his own devices. Maybe he got drunk off the isopropyl alcohol.

I maintained a very safe distance from all monkeys - and watched my back with a healthy amount of paranoia - for the remainder of our visit.

In addition to having monkeys steal from us and attempt to drop hard fruits from trees onto us, we saw two monkeys using smooth rocks to pummel leaves before eating them, like a makeshift rolling pin. Pete notes that he has observed similarly primitive tool skills at the Wyoming State Legislature when the representatives were busy not washing their hands and spreading the flu to one another (oh to be a nurse).

Does this method of crushing leaves make eating them better? Hard to say. You’ll have to visit and ask the monkeys for yourself.

Itinerary

Hotel

Yudha Ubud ($16/night, payment in cash required, breakfast included) - WOW. Yudha Ubud was an absolute gem of a budget hotel and one of my favorite places where we stayed.

The host, Made (pronounced mah-day), made us breakfast to order every day and served it on our private terrace. Five-star service for a fraction of the price.

The room was basic but clean, and the foam mattress was comfortable (if firm). We enjoyed our view of the garden.

Food

Angel Warung - Try the tuna with mango salsa.
Pizza Cult - Vegan Pizza. It’s much better than that sounds.
Suka Sehat - We had the satay.
Grab is available for food delivery. You do not need to worry about the taxi mafia (see below) when using Grab for food.
Nasi Goreng, or fried rice, is a common Indonesian dish served with satay, or grilled meat on a stick. The addition of the satay makes this much more of a meal compared to the fried rice in other countries we visited. Worth a try.

Transportation

Nothing prepared us for the intense and awful taxi heckling situation at Denpasar International Airport.

After a couple of months of traveling Southeast Asia, we had gotten used to taxi and tuk-tuk drivers shouting at us whenever we left our hotel.

“Taxi? Taxi? Tuk-tuk?”

More than 90% stopped once we said, “no.” After two nos, 100% stopped bothering us.

That rule did not hold true at Denpasar Airport.

The hordes of taxi drivers (and I’m not kidding - there had to be at least a hundred drivers waiting for passengers) will not leave you alone. We had multiple drivers follow us - stalk us! - after we said no. Even Pete telling them no - and throwing in a few expletives - did not get at least two of them to leave us alone.

This is the only place I have ever traveled to where I would not have felt comfortable as a solo female traveler. I was very grateful to have Pete in all his six-foot-tall, cowboy-boot glory. (The Indonesians are, for better or worse, smaller people than Pete.)

If you’re traveling alone, I’d highly recommend paying extra to pre-arrange a private airport transfer so someone meets you and escorts you out.

Airport Transportation: Budget travel tip!

Thanks to the taxi mafia’s monopoly at Denpasar, a taxi to Ubud (or most other locations) will cost 500,000-600,000 rupiah.

Instead, we walked 10-15 minutes outside of the airport to a nearby hotel and requested a Grab from there, which cost 280,000 rupiah before tip (about 320,000 after tip).

But wow, be prepared to say “no” to a lot of taxi drivers heckling you on your way out of the airport. Walk quickly and firmly away from them.

About Grab and the Taxi Mafia

Grab does work throughout the main island of Bali, but you need to be aware of where you’re using it. The airport and main town areas, including the heart of Ubud, have “no Grab” zones where it is illegal for Grabs to pick you up. There have also been reports of taxi mafia members getting into physical altercations with Grab Drivers (and sometimes passengers based on reviews). Be aware of your surroundings and avoid looking at your phone while waiting for a Grab so it’s less obvious what you’re doing. If asked by a taxi driver, state that your friend is picking you up.

Despite all this, we did successfully use Grabs on several occasions during our time in Bali.

If you do request a Grab and like your driver, many will give you a business card with their WhatsApp number so you can arrange a ride without using Grab. They will still honor Grab’s pricing for their type of vehicle. Our airport taxi driver was Budi Bali, and you can contact him via WhatsApp at +085-333-866-687.

Grab accepted my American Express credit card, but I couldn’t get my Visa cards to work with Grab in Bali.

Taxis and Private Drivers

Most hotels have a preferred taxi or private driver. Your host will be happy to call and arrange one for you. Restaurants will do the same.

It is not hard to hail a taxi or motorbike - any taxi who sees a tourist will pull over and ask, “Taxi? Taxi?” incessantly until you say no. Negotiate your price hard before entering the vehicle.

Busses and Shuttles

We found that bus or shuttle tickets for two people often weren’t that much cheaper than a Grab, and they were a lot less convenient. Additionally, the bus I found online that ran from the airport area (Kuta) to Ubud was no longer running due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We recommend using Grab instead.

Currency

Indonesia uses the Indonesian Rupiah.

This is critical: Use the airport ATMs to get all the cash you need for your trip to Bali! Unlike other airport ATMs, the ones in Bali have fair exchange rates and low or no fees.

ATMs - especially reputable ones - are difficult to find once you leave the airport. If you do find a reputable branded ATM, it may not be located next to a bank as is recommended for travelers.

Most international ATM brands (Maybank, HSBC, etc.) offer fair exchange rates and fees. However, avoid Commonwealth Bank ATMs. They had the worst exchange rate of all that we tried.

The Indonesian Rupiah was one currency that I could not exchange with my American bank when we returned home from our trip. Either use all of your cash or exchange it at the airport before you come home.

Visas

Indonesia requires a Visa On Arrival for tourists with a United States passport. You do not need to make visa arrangements in advance; a 30-day visa will be sold to you as you enter the country. It is $35, paid in US dollars, so bring cash. (There's an ATM if you forgot.)

Bonus Itinerary: Spa Day!

I went to Murni's Spa to get a pedicure while we were in Ubud. Murni's had a beautiful garden - easily the most stunning view I've had while getting my toes done. The pedicure was about $15. Their massages are reasonably priced, too.

Perry’s Travel Tip of the Week

Access Your Library’s Ebook Collection from Anywhere

I arrived in Ubud having never read Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. (You might be surprised to learn this fact given the type of journey Pete and I are on.)

Unsurprisingly, I decided that I should rectify this situation as soon as possible after landing in Bali, well-known for its inclusion in the “Love” portion of the book.

So you know what I did? I logged into the Libby app, which already had my local, Wyoming-based library card saved in it, checked out an eBook copy, and devoured it before we left the island. (Highly recommend. It’s a good book.)

If you don’t already have a local library card, run - don’t walk - to the nearest location and get yourself one! Once you have a card (and some libraries will even let you open an account online these days), download Libby to access eBooks and audiobooks no matter where you are fo’ freeeeee.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d love it if you would share us with your friends.

All our love,

Pete and Perry

Perry