Like I said in the last post, our second destination in Bali was the town of Ubud. We picked an AirBnB based on reviews and price, and hoped for the best. The first picture is the access to the house; it was down a trail through the rice fields outside of town. I knew rice was a grass, but I’d never seen it up close. When it’s not ready for harvest, it looks like any other grass (botanists, please don’t correct me; I don’t care). So, a few hundred yards from the road, and a little hard to find. That said, once there out hosts were just great. We dropped our things and headed into town for lunch.
The town, at least at first glance, seemed entirely given over to the tourist trade. I’ve been places that were in the early stages of that transformation, with a few more art galleries and hotels than seems strictly necessisary. Ubud was several stages more advanced. The early starters in the area, yoga studios, hippie cafes, and the like, had become deeply entrenched institutions, and all of the shops except the grocery store were for tourists only. I mean, there were no signs that said so, but the prices and the people in them said so. The endless touts trying to sell a taxi ride also said so.
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. That day, we just went and had lunch and walked around a little. Drank beers back at the room. Talked to the other guests, and tried to plan our next day. There were a bunch of temples, and some markets that sounded interesting. With that vague outline of a plan in place, we went to bed.
