Ubud, Bali – Day 41

This is our last full day on holiday and at the moment we are relaxing by the pool in 28 degrees of heat trying not to think about the four degree temperature in Scarborough. We arrived at the Samaya Hotel in Ubud yesterday morning, since when we have been soaking up the atmosphere and shopping. Ubud is a touristy town about an hours drive from the capital Denpasar and the port of Benoa where our ship docked. It is a touristy and busy place with inadequate roads choked with traffic, particularly mopeds. However our hotel is an oasis of calm, consisting of little bungalows each with their own pool on the side of a river valley.

This morning I arose early to take a guided walk around the area of the hotel. It was fascinating to see the intensive agriculture taking place almost in the middle of the town. The principal crop is rice grown in well-irrigated paddy fields.

There is certainly no shortage of water here. The more well to do houses are in the form of walled compounds where the extended family all have there own smaller houses. Integrated into the compound is a Hindu temple for festivities and a graveyard for your ancestors, truly cradle to grave living. Evidence of Hinduism is all around with temples, statues, and small shrines.

After a lovely breakfast we went shopping, first for coffee particularly the Lowok coffee that is famous here. Our guide probably described it best as poo coffee; yes the beans have been digested through the gut of an animal and then excreted.

Sounds horrible, but is tastes really good, although it is fairly expensive. The normal Balinese beans are also good so various purchases were made. Watch out when you next come to Throxenby Lane, you will maybe be drinking poo coffee.

Then it was onto a batik shop where Marion was in ecstasies over the material on show, particularly the hand designed cotton batik. Even to my untutored eye it looked lovely. Having made our purchases we toured some of the rural country around Ubud, particularly looking at the rice fields and the terraced agriculture. Unusually it has not rained.

All is left is our final dinner and to pack tomorrow morning before the journey home and a farewell to what has been a lovely holiday. We hope to return to the southern hemisphere sometime soon. I will sum up our feelings about the holiday when we are settled in in Scarborough on Monday or Tuesday.