Ubud, Indonesia

After finishing my final exam on the 26th at about 2:30 pm, I dashed straight to the airport from my exam venue to catch my 5:45 pm flight to Denpasar, Indonesia. The flight was smooth and I was sat next to two lovely similar-aged girls. After arriving in Denpasar, and waiting in line for immigration which seemed like an eternity, I was picked up and driven to Ubud in the dark, where I arrived to meet my family at the hotel at around 11:30 pm. I quickly made my way to my room, ate an entire margherita pizza and went to bed. In the morning, I was greeted by a pleasant surprise of a view from my hotel balcony which I had missed coming in so late and in the dark.

Ubud is a small town in Bali, known as a "center for traditional crafts and dance", located further north from the island's central Denpasar. It's surrounded by picturesque terraced rice paddies, Hindu temples and shrines and tends to be more laid back then the coastal towns of Seminyak and Canggu. I was blown away by how lush Ubud turned out to be and the amount of greenery that I found in the most compromising places. After our buffet (consisting of curried vegetables, chilli tofu, a poached egg on toast, watermelon, papaya, pineapple as well my first taste of the unique Balinese coffee), we headed into the town centre. As my family had already been in Bali for six days prior to me, and in Ubud for three days, they were more familiar with the area and showed me around the local crafts markets where I bought a macrame plant hanger to send home, and tried the vegan coconut ice cream and homemade wafer cone (hint: it was good).

We then went for one of the most amazing paddy field walks where we saw many chickens, cows, ducks, butterflies, streams and canopies and a great deal of greenery.

We saw the local people preparing their rice harvests (Mum was surprised about how they harvested the grain, thinking that rice grew more like a potato?). It was a lot to taken in, considering I had never been to Bali and that Melbourne never really offers a lush landscape like this. I've been finding Bali somewhat similar in feel to Sri Lanka, however can appreciate the difference in culture and customs.

In the afternoon we checked out of our hotel and got in a taxi to head to Seminyak, where I'll be spending the remainder of this trip with my family before I fly to London on the 31st, and won't be seeing by family until I land back in Melbourne in February. I will be posting about Seminyak in the coming days, but so far have found my experience here in Bali super enjoyable. The locals are friendly, the food is amazing and life is good. ✌🏼