The first full day in Ubud, I hadn't scheduled or planned anything to give us a morning to relax and go into town and just explore. Our first stop in town was the Monkey Forest. I was a little nervous about visiting the monkey forest due to peoples blogs I had read and other concerns but we decided to venture in and just see how it went. To my fun surprise, Jacob LOVED it. He thought the monkeys were so funny. One of my concerns was that I heard the monkeys would climb all over you but after talking to a couple of locals they said to just not bring any food in and we would be ok. No monkeys ever jumped on any of us. However, at one point a group of monkey's were wrestling and a big monkey walked by Jacob and pulled his shirt like "come-on, I can take you". At first Jacob wanted to freak out but it was so short lived that he ended up just ignoring it. I personally thought it was pretty funny.
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| This is what happens if you feed the monkeys. |
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| Monkey's Wrestling |
I shouldn't share this story, and I won't be winning any Mom of the Year awards for it but it's too priceless to forget! At the end of our time in the Monkey Forest, Micah and I were looking at a map to decide which exit we wanted to take to be closer to shops. As we were talking Jacob was squating down watching a monkey eat some food. Next thing I know, Jacob is eating something too....Yep, Jacob decided to join the monkey and see what was so yummy. Yuck!! Luckily it was very short lived and so far he hasn't had any side affects. Eek!
After the Monkey Forest we wandered the town, ate some lunch, picked up some groceries and headed back to enjoy our villa. Unfortunately, the pool was way too cold which meant that swimming never lasted that long. But we still did our best to enjoy it.
The next day we were picked up at our hotel and driven through the countryside to the Elephant Safari Park. Jacob has entered a new phase where some things actually scare him so I had been preparing him for riding an elephant for weeks before our trip. The whole way there we were talking about getting to ride an elephant. Jacob was so excited! This elephant riding experience was night and day different from our Thailand experience. It was a nice resort where the elephants actually looked taken care of and not so neglected and sad. Plus, Jacob didn't cry through the whole thing :)
When the ride was over, we were able to go over and feed and pet our elephant. Jacob's squeals of joy were priceless. The elephants also performed a little "talent" show. It was kinda cute but not too exciting.
That afternoon we again went back to our villa for naps and relaxing before heading out for dinner. We ate at a little local place called "Naughty Nuri's". It was a laid back local place with the food being cooked on the grill out front and shared tables wherever there were enough seats. Fun experience!
For our final full day in Ubud, I scheduled us a day tour to go visit the Tegalalang rice terraces, a couple Hindu temples, a coffee plantation, and Kintamani Volcano view lunch. We started with the Tegalalang Rice terraces. It was beautiful and hot! Also a somewhat challenging hike if you weren't wearing proper shoes (which we were but LOTS of other girls out there were not). It was also harvest time for these fields so there were workers out there harvesting the rice. That was fun to watch. Immediately after the terraces, we stopped at a coffee plantation. Neither Micah or I drink coffee so it wasn't super exciting for us but it was still fun. We were good sports and did sample each coffee. You can see how hot I was in the picture from the sweat on my shirt. So attractive!
From the coffee plantation we drove to the Kintamani Volcano. I think to truly enjoy this we needed to have done the sunrise hike or something more adventurous than sitting at a not so great restaurant looking at it. Ohh well, we came, we saw, we took pictures.
Our final two stops of the day were at Hindu temples. The first was the Tirta Empul temple of holy water. It was cool because it had an underground spring that people would come to bathe in to get a holy bath. I have to admit, every time we tour a Hindu or Buddhist temple I get a strange feeling so I choose just to pray for the people there and view it as knowledge of where other people come from. The final temple Gunung Temple had a TON of steps and after a day of hiking a decent amount already we were tired! We ended up not spending a ton of time at the temple because we were just done. (And yes, they made us wear the awesome skirts)
The next day we had a transfer taking us from our villa in Ubud to our new villa on Sanur Beach. We made a few stops along the way including the Jatiluwih Rice Terrace and Tanah Lot Temple. These rice terraces were definitely off the beaten path and tucked inside the hills. Tanah Lot temple is on the coast and known for the sunset views and pictures. However, we arrived there a little too early for us to want to hang around with the kids waiting on sunset. Plus it was crowded and not as impressive as what I was thinking. So we basically just walked around, took a couple pictures and left. However, we did have a group of school kids wanting to take pictures with us which was kinda funny. Once we left the temple we continued on to our villa in Sanur.
Up Next: Our time at Sanur Beach
