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| One of the ladies working the rice fields posed for me. This is very manual work! |
The weather in Bali has been very unpredictable. According to the weather channel we should have had rain every day during our 30 day stay which turned out to be 31 days but more on that later. In the far western side of Bali where we spent the first 27 days, we rarely had any rain.
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| This guy was digging and stomping. |
The heat and humidity were unreal! Sure it rained a couple of days but not very long at all and sure threatened to rain daily. When we moved to Ubud, we had set plans for each day. My friend Theresa from Australia also spends quite a bit of time in Bali.
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| The rice paddy’s start out full of water for them to grow in. It has been a very dry season until now so I can imagine how their rice growing may be hurting their income. |
She knows Ubud with her eyes closed and we were very fortunate and more than grateful she could help us plan our few days remaining in Bali. She helped us with wonderful ideas on what we could see and where we could eat each night to maximize our time left.
The day we arrived we decided to head on over to the Monkey Sanctuary. What a fun day that was. Hopefully I included enough pictures to show how much we enjoyed it on my last post. On our second day, more rain was threatening but we predicted it would be just like on the western side of Bali, all talk and no show!
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| The rice fields are actually beautiful when you see the whole picture. |
How wrong we were. We left after breakfast for a trek through the rice fields. We hiked about .6 mile/1 km to a little cafe called Sari Organik. With Chuck’s knee problems, we have to walk a little slower so it takes longer.
Unfortunately, I’m a pacer so I make myself slow down when I realize I’m way ahead of him. We were drenched with sweat by the time we arrived. We sat in the back and had two amazing organic fruit drinks.
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| Delicious fruit drinks to cool us off. Notice the bamboo straws. |
With the drinks and the cool breeze we were able to dry off somewhat. The view from this place was beautiful. We could see many variations and stages of the rice growing, It was an amazing view and so glad we didn’t miss it.
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| Egrets in the rice fields help keep the bug population from eating the crop. |
We finally decided it was time to leave. We were supposed to walk back where we came from but decided to walk a little further. Well, a little further turned from .6 miles/1 km to 2.5 miles/3.8 km. on a narrow trail.
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| The lotus flowers were so beautiful when lucky enough to see one open. |
That wasn’t the hard part. The trail changed from bricks to mud. Then it started raining a little so we ducked into a small shop. There were many of these shops along the way of native Balinese that sold their art.
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| The ducks also cut down on the bugs and worms that try to damage the rice crop. |
There was everything from beautiful hand paintings and ceramics to jewelry. The one we stopped at had a young girl learning the family trade of custom jewelry making.
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| This was a beautiful entrance to another villa that was surrounded by rice paddy’s |
We were impressed with her knowledge of gold and silver. She had some beautiful earrings that I should have bought. They were only $20 USD and were made from pure silver and 18 carat gold.
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| We are pretty sure this is should be a scarecrow. |
Maybe next trip! We talked to her and her mom while it poured down rain. It finally let up somewhat so we decided to move on. We finally made it to the main road and the rain had picked up again.
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| A lily lined path to a restaurant. |
Our little umbrella just wasn’t doing the job. Around the corner was another store so we stood outside under an overhang while it rained buckets of water.
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| Lush greenery overlooking the forest |
We finally gave up and walked into the store to see if we could sit down. There happen to be a taxi driver that owned the store. God was watching over us! We got a ride back to the hotel.
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| Little villas are tucked everywhere. |
Thank goodness because the rain didn’t let up all night long. We were hot, wet and exhausted. And Chuck’s knee was killing him. The many steps we had to climb plus getting to our villa is at least 50 or more steps of climbing.
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| Ducks doing their job! |
He wasn’t feeling too good.
Before the rain started, we did see many beautiful rice paddy’s along the way and some nice gardens and homes. It was an enjoyable walk until it wasn’t.
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| Banana trees were as common as other fruit trees such as coconut, papaya and dragonfruit. |
Our plan before the rain was to make it back to Ubud and visit the Royal Palace and a Lotus pond. I found a few lotus flowers along the way so at least we didn’t totally lose out.
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| A different stage of grown for the rice. These workers were weeding. How can they tell what is what? |
We ventured out to eat a quick bite at a nice Mexican restaurant in the pouring down rain. It was the closest we could get to without needed a lift. The hotel had umbrellas that came in handy.
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| A path to natives homes. Look at all the scooters! |
The rain let up for a little while the next day so we made it out for a little shopping and more walking until the rain started again so we headed back before we got caught up in it again.
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| Paintings along the path |
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| Masks are popular here. These are carved from wood. |
On our final day before we packed our bags, Chuck had a $10 USD/137,100 Rupiah haircut and I had a wonderful $20 USD/274,200 Rupiah, 90 minute massage.
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| Chuck said someone in this house had their eye on us! 😆 |
It was a nice day and helped motivate us to get our packing done. Other than the mosquito bites, the ants everywhere and the loud strange animal noises at night that woke us up at 4:30 in the morning, we enjoyed our final 3 days in Ubud, rain and all.
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| This appeared to be an old fort with a watchtower. We couldnt find any information but it was abandoned. |
We’ve promised to make another visit in the future and we will definitely do that. Bali is a beautiful and unique island in the country of Indonesia although we only saw a little piece of it.
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| The pyramids have yoga type healing ceremonies with healing and relaxation. They are called sound healing pyramids |
We cant wait for the opportunity to return. There is so much to see.
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| Turned out pretty with the raindrops! |
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| Another gorgeous Lotus Flower. |
May God bless you always!
Chuck & Lea Ann
WorldTravelReynolds 