Thank God for Ubud

As we eluded in our previous post, our time in the southern beach region of Bali was less than stellar and honestly, was downright bad.  Contrived, inexorably busy, dirty, and the continual harassment by hawkers and eager restaurateurs, were the themes in our visit to the south leading us to really question our decision to visit Bali.  We tried to stay positive about our experience, as we had a few good moments (all represented in our blog post) but thank god for our recent four day experience in the centrally located town of Ubud. We no longer have to hold back our disdain for the south, as we have found the true Balinese Paradise.

Ubud has always been the cultural center of the island. It is a quiet little town with meandering narrow streets, great shopping (ML appreciated this), fantastic restaurants and serves as home for most of the islands artists and craftsman.  Their workshops are set in idyllic surroundings of picturesque mountains, beautiful lakes and lush green valleys that have been transformed into the Tegallantang Rice Terraces. You can see this above, below and mentioned in our previous Celebration post.

The rice terraces take advantage of pure spring water that flows from the north and feeds the terraces.  They are then divided into sections for the growing of rice.  Rice can be grown in each section three times a year- in the first month of planting it needs constant water, then slowly over the next three months, less and less water is needed as it grows about hip high and is ready for harvesting.  AB ventured into the rice paddies, to the amazement of the locals, apparently since tourists don't typically go there and captured some great photos.

In Ubud we had some very nice accommodations as everything is set in the rice fields and provides some spectacular views. Here you can see the view out our window and where we had our meals.  Please note the scenery was magnificent, but the bug situation unenviable.

When extolling the virtues of a trip to SE Asia to many of you, who are undoubtedly reading this, a common question we received was, "What are you going to do there?"  AB's canned response was: " Ride an elephant!!!!!!!" So, at the first chance to actually partake in said activity, we jumped.  It was a great fun and while ML's elephant was quite well behaved, AB's was an inquisitive elephant and took every opportunity to venture off the beaten safari path in search of food- this was not lost on ML's as she believed they were kindred spirits.

In addition to the local art scene, Ubud has a number of ornate and sometimes lively temples, which ML highlighted earlier, when she was attacked by an aggressive monkey, which are not native to Bali and hail from Borneo and were originally introduced to attract tourists.

 
While in Ubud we decided to partake in a cooking class and learn how to make our new favorite Baliense dish, Nasi Gorang, which is the local interpretation of fried rice.  We had a great teacher and really enjoyed ourselves. ML got a healthy giggle out of the class when she delivered her opening introduction "I'm Meredith, from the United States and he (AB) does all my cooking."   We were then told that if the woman AND man doesn't cook, there is no relationship.  Hmm.

Overall, we really fell in love in Ubud and enjoyed our time there, and even discussed potentially going back if time in our trip allows, but alas, with all things in life:

"There never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know"

-Jim Croce, Time in a Bottle

(yes, we are cheesy, we know.)

Evening Celebration

Enjoying the local beer, Bintang, while watching the sunset on the world famous Ubud rice terraces. Ok, we have no local confirmation they are world famous but in our minds they either are already or should be. Also, in a future post we will explain our travel "Celebration" philosophy.

Monkey "Devil" Forest

One of these little devils pulled ML's strapless dress down looking for AB's banana.
Seriously. He bought a bunch of bananas to feed them and AB ran away as ML got assaulted.

Our New Bali Bungalow

Beautiful Bali

Once we announced our SE Asia Adventure, previous visitors advised us ( I guess demanded is a better word), that we visit the small eastern island of Indonesia known as, Bali.  There are two unique experiences to be had in Bali, a mountainous retreat set in the hills amongst rice paddies and a thriving beach/surfer scene in the south.  The past four days we spent our time experiencing "tropical paradise""

The Balinese people are a very friendly, easy going, industrious people and their hospitality is second to none.  They work very hard and similar to most third-world countries it appears every family runs its own business entity.

We have enjoyed some fantastic Balinese meals including dining on a beach with fresh seafood, you choose the fish live from tanks and they grill it for you. Every meal comes with fantastic fried rice called Nasi Gorang plus live entertainment (ML even tried her hand at it) and best of all, the beers are about $1.50 a piece.

Also, they are a very religious people and each day they make small offerings, complete with food, incense and flowers to bring them good luck!  Also, it seems every street corner has a small temple for daily worship.  We had the opportunity to visit Ulu Watu, one of the most famous Island temples, it is perched on the East end of the Island and serves to protect the people and their land from Evil spirits in the East.  The guardians of this temple are a roving band of monkeys, who are fed by worshipers, as the monkeys are believed to bring them good luck.  In our humble opinion they look pretty fat, plus locals warn they are trained to steal your belongings, which leads to a ransom from their trainers!

Not to be left out, Meredith has also made a religious pilgrimage to the many shopping streets of Seminyak. Here she is in front of an aptly named store, Liberty.

After our four days in the southern beaches, we cut our time short, and are now headed to Ubud in central Bali to experience the Mountain regions and hopefully take in some more Balinese hospitality, cooking classes & elephant riding.  On a final note, the people are very nice, the food delicious, the landscape has some potential, but overall we didn't care for the southern beaches.  It was just too crowded (we did not realize, but now do, that Indonesia has the 4th largest population in the world), too resort oriented, and really didn't represent the "tropical paradise" we anticipated.   

Here we Go Steelers.... Here we Go!

AB here. Ok, I have been holding off on this post for sometime, because I didn't want to jinx it, but THE STEELERS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!

I had the opportunity to watch the Baltimore game on delay at a brewpub in Singapore and ML found it hilarious as I was the sole Steelers fan while a room of  English "football" fans watched a Tottenham Hotspurs game.  I managed to make more noise and draw more attention than those "English punters," actually ML had to leave to avoid ridicule by association, needless to say it was a great win and embarrassing to be seen around me.

Similarly, I hoped to see the Steelers play on delay in Bali as well, but no luck.  So after avoiding all emails and Steelers related information for an entire day, I gave in and spent the past 3 hours reading every conceivable article and watching ever single game recap available.

Superbowl XLV is going to be awesome, not only are the Steelers playing for "heavenly" No. 7, but my other home town team, the Packers, are playing them! However, as torn as I am, I have to stick with the Black and Gold - GO Steelers!

Sinagpore - Survived

We successfully survived Singapore! We went 8 days without chewing gum, didn't get caned and ML had her first Hostel experience.  Now, we are off to the beautiful beaches of Bali and to explore the mysterious Monkey Forest!

According to ML, the guy below represents her ideal Monkey, skinny and fashionable!  I mean honestly look at those red leggings!

Last Days in Singapore

We are frantically packing and beginning our journey from Singapore to Bali, but not without some parting shots from Singapore.

First, we had AB's new favorite food, Japanese ramen noodles with pork cheek.  Eating this was truly a life changing experience for him, especially given the stuff we have in the states.  It was nothing short of amazing.

Then we had the greatest Desert in Singapore, this is actually super thin shaved ice flavored with Mango and Strawberry.  It was awesome!

We took a trip the Night Safari,  the only one in the World, it is pretty much an outdoor zoo at night and was awesome.  Unfortunately, we don't have any great photos, due to the lack of light, but our favorite activity was the flying mammal enclosure complete with giant fruit bats flying around your head and the acrobatic flying squirrels that dive bomb the tourists.

We attended the regular zoo as well.  It billed itself as the top Rain Forest Zoo in the world and it didn't disappoint.  We got really lucky and showed up just in time for some "snacks" being fed to the animals.

ML even played the part in her Safari Barbi outfit (sans hat unfortunately) & AB tried his hand at a Crocodile Hunter impression.

We ended our Zoo experience with the famous Singapore Sling (FYI, not that great)

If the Singapore Sling is the national drink, then national dish is Chili Crab.  We had to try one and you can see below the before and after.

Singapore Runs on this Stuff!

The greatest coffee in the world!  Every morning we start our, always humid, day in Singapore with a huge ice coffee from Ya Kun Kaya, this stuff is addictive.  They take coffee beans, roast them with sugar & butter, and then steep the beans with a "sock" in hot water for what feels like forever, till they get a deep, thick coffee.  Next, add some condensed milk, froth in a blender and like magic you have the greatest coffee ever, just ignore the calories, or as they say, "if you want it skinny only drink half!"

Also, please note the Ice Cream Toast, which is Durian Ice Cream sandwiched between real toast and for $1.50, it's amazing and a great breakfast treat!

FYI, if AB gets back to the states and doesn't find work, he swears he will open a coffee stand serving this stuff!

Cultural Activities

We are officially on day 7 of our adventure.  As we pointed out in or previous post, the national pastime of Singapore is shopping & eating, and not to brag, but at this point we are experts.  In order to not bore you with shopping stories, we will stick to eating and exploring in this post.  Although it is worth pointing out the avg. temperature in Singapore is 80 degrees, yet all the stores have their winter collections out, no joke, they are selling sweaters and wool coats in 80 degree weather.

Over the past few days we have done some more exploring of Singapore, specifically their very culturally diverse neighborhoods and cuisine in Chinatown and Little India.  On Saturday, we participated in the Chinese New Year kick-off parade and ate an enormous amount of soup dumplings.

These people are really taking the year of the rabbit seriously and celebrating for an entire month with parades, pop-up markets and musical productions.

After we had our Chinese fill, we headed to Little India.

It was a great experience as it really seemed like being in India even right down to the smell.  For dinner we stopped a recommended restaurant, Andhra Curry, where AB had an awesome Chicken Tikki Masala and ML had some Briani with Naan.

Finally, we will end this post with a lesson we learned in China, but have since begun to appreciate here in Singapore-- when it suits Asian governments and their people, they have a way of, lets call it, bending the truth.  Here we have experienced two instances, which are quite funny.  On Sunday, we visited an island to the south of Singapore called Sentosa.  It was originally a base for the British when they fought the Japanese in WWII, then became an industrial wasteland, until it was redeveloped into a very contrived "beach" resort.  Think Singapore Disneyland.  The two funniest parts were the "MerLion"  a mythical creature created by the tourism board in the 70's to draw tourists, but now referred to as the national symbol of Singapore dating back hundreds of years.

Second, there is a small island accessible via chainbridge, which they claim as the "Southernmost Point of Asia Continent", however, 1) Indonesia, more specifically Pamana Island, is geographically the southernmost point of the Asian continent, 2) if they really meant the southernmost point in the Asian land mass and not Asian continent this would be Tanjung Piai, Johor, Malaysia, and finally, AB's favorite, 3) Singapore is an island and is not considered part of mainland Asia.