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Sunset over rice paddies

Ubud

Ubud, the cultural center of Bali, is a beautiful place to visit. We found a small bungalow with traditionally carved wooden doors and window frames. Our open-roofed mandi faced a natural rock wall with green plants growing on it. The front porch opened onto a magnificent garden with plants, flowers and a wall of palm trees. The family that ran the guesthouse was friendly, and, most importantly, we had a big breakfast every morning.

Gua Gaja Gamelan instruments

Around Ubud are many fine temples and beautifully terraced rice fields. The town itself has art galleries and museums as well as shops selling locally-produced furniture, pottery, wood-carvings and other handicrafts. There are regular performances of Balinese dance and music. We rented bikes to tour the surrounding countryside. Goa Gajah (Elephant cave) is a splendidly carved cave temple with ritual bathing pools. Further up the fertile mountain slopes is Gunung Kawi, a group of ancient funerary monuments carved from the rock walls of a terraced canyon. Later, at dusk, we passed through Petulu to watch the roosting herons. Thousands of sleek white birds descended on the village, jostling and cackling as they settled in for the night in the trees. The locals believe that the herons represent the wandering souls of the thousands of people executed during the communist suppression of 1965.

Balinese Rice Fields Balinese Temple

Our remaining days in Ubud were spent art shopping, feeding monkeys, walking the rice terraces and visiting temples. The art collection at the Neka museum outlines the development and progression of Balinese art, demonstrating the distinct influence of western artists who came to Bali to live in the 1920s and 30s. Around the museum was a beautiful upper-class neighborhood with large houses and landscaped gardens. But follow the small trail that leads down to the river and everything changes. At the bottom of the canyon are camps of people who make their living by cutting bricks out of the steep cliffs, drying them, and carrying them on their heads to build and expand those same beautiful houses. As we finished our walk through the rice fields, the setting sunlight fanned out over the bottle-green, terraced paddies through rows of swaying palm trees. Ducks waddled along the banks while ingenious bamboo decorations fluttered in the wind to keep rice-eating birds at bay.

Guesthouse in Ubud Tomo

That night we tried a Balinese specialty, “bebek betutu” (roast duck). An entire duck, ordered a day in advance, was slow-cooked with aromatic spices, especially nutmeg. We gorged on the flavorful dark meat, mixing the heady sauce with our rice and vegetables. The smell of nutmeg was overpowering. Eric began to feel dizzy, then flushed. He could hardly walk. We stumbled home, passing a kecak performance on the way, hearing the chanting calls of the singers in the dark night. For Eric it was a long, sleepless night spent trying to digest the rich meal. We never found out if it was the fatty sauce or the nutmeg that caused such a violent reaction.

Fighting cocks Rice terraces