Ubud, Bali: Mischievous monkeys and Ubud's most beautiful spots
- Esther
- Oct 26, 2018
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 4, 2020
After just a couple of days in Ubud, I’m already really liking this place. The vibe here is extremely laid-back and beachy (despite it being nowhere near the beach!) and it’s the perfect place to wander around and find cute boutique, cosy bars, restaurants and trendy cafés.
Compared to the area we were staying in Canggu, Ubud has definitely become pretty westernised in parts, but I've actually been really pleasantly surprised by how peaceful and beautiful the whole area still feels. Knowing how popular Ubud has become with both backpackers on a budget and glamorous Instagram influencers, I'd expected the town to feel a little over-touristy and 'ruined', but even with all of its visitors I still think Ubud's kept a lot of its traditional Balinese culture, colour and character.
My favourite out of all the trendy cafés we’ve been to here has been the Lazy Cats Café, which does the best coffee, ‘chia seed coconut ice milkshakes’ and Ubud Raw chocolate squares.
Food and drink here is also ridiculously affordable in general. Last night, we went to a Japanese sushi restaurant with a lovely, cosy atmosphere and great service and my meal only cost the equivalent of about £1.50!
Plus, it’s even cheaper if you’re eating the local food. We tried nasi campur for lunch at a Balinese restaurant the other day and it was amazing.
We’ve also struck gold with our accommodation again! Indy’s House is a homestay hidden behind the long colourful markets right in the centre of town. It’s run by a lovely older couple who have been so kind and attentive to us; always going above and beyond to help us out and make us feel welcome here. The banana pancakes Indy's made us every morning have also been incredible!
The Ubud Monkey Forest
Our first big stop in Bali’s busy capital was its famous Monkey Forest, which was such a cool experience we actually went back again the next day.
We spent a good couple of hours walking around watching the families of monkeys eating, running around and playing with each other. There were literally hundreds of them roaming around freely there!
Not long after we'd gone in, a baby monkey also jumped on me and started drinking from our water bottle before scampering off with it, which was really funny.
Just before we left the Monkey Forest, two monkeys also jumped on Ben, broke into our backpack and ran off into the trees with the new dress I'd bought in the market that morning! At one point he even ripped it out of its plastic bag and wrapped it around his head like a headdress!
It’s safe to say the Monkey Forest was definitely a more interactive experience than all of the times I’ve seen monkeys in zoos back home!
Touring Ubud
As well as exploring the area a bit by ourselves, we also had a proper tour of the area to get to know it better.
Our friendly tour guide Agung began by taking us to try something I’d been pretty curious about since we got here; Bali’s much-loved Luwak coffee. Luwak coffee is made by Asian civets eating and pooing out coffee beans – which can then somehow be turned into the most expensive coffee in the country! As a coffee lover, I was interested to see if Luwak coffee was actually as good as its reputation among the locals.
After learning about how the coffee is made (and meeting the civets themselves!), we got to do some tea and coffee tasting at the plantation. We actually tried fourteen different flavours of tea and coffee along with the Luwak coffee itself. It did taste pretty good but to be honest a lot of the regular coffee samples that we tried tasted better to me!
Next, we moved onto Ubud's famous Tegallalang rice terraces. They definitely beat the Jatiluwih rice terraces we’d seen earlier by a mile - and even on a pretty cloudy afternoon, Tegallalang's rice paddies still looked really impressive.
The Tegenungan waterfall was another really pretty part of the tour. It's a super touristy place (which we definitely didn’t get to ourselves like we had done with the waterfall in Canggu) and I wish we’d had our swim stuff with us so that we could have had a swim, but the waterfall was beautiful enough that we could just admire it and be happy with that.
After that, we moved on to Bali Swing; a park filled with enormous rope swings that let you swing out over an amazing jungle view. This place sounded like a great idea but honestly it just ended up being quite a touristy place full of Insta influencers trying to get the perfect shot! The lines could also get pretty long for some of the bigger swings.
The views were incredible once you were up there, though, so I’m definitely still glad we went.
Like the last tour we had in Canggu, we finished up by visiting some holy places in Bali; the Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave) and the Pura Gunung Kawi Sebatu Water Temple.
The Water Temple was a beautiful temple complex where we saw people bathing in the water fountains and leaving colourful offerings around the grounds; a super peaceful end to a full and busy day.
Comments