This Ubud's for U

February 20th & 21st - Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

So what's up with Ubud? Can't quite figure out the vibe of this place. For starters there are more single foreign women here than even in San Miguel de Allende. It must be all the yoga retreats and other spiritual , which I have not walked head -on into yet. There are more amazing organic restaurants than I have ever encountered anywhere with extreme fusion food; it is hard to tell what is actually real Indonesian food if you don't already know. Tempeh - I know tempeh is Indonesian. But many places serves choices from Mexican to Indian to American health food. We'll see what Jati Homestay serves for breakfast.

From WikiTravel: (This is a good explanation of what I am seeing in Ubud).

The EPL Phenomenon

Blame Elizabeth Gilbert. Those of you who managed to make it through the turgid best-selling novel Eat, Pray, Love, might have an inkling of what is coming up. Ubud features quite heavily in our heroine's search for fulfilment, and the knock-on effect in the town has been huge. Acolytes have swarmed to Ubud looking for (and sometimes finding) places and people referenced in the book. The actual characters mentioned are surely sick and tired of rather desperate looking thirty-something single women turning up on their doorsteps. The economic benefits of the novel to the area ratcheted up a whole other notch in mid-2009, when the eponymously named movie was shot in and around Ubud, Julia Roberts and all. Just be aware though that Ubud cannotnecessarily guarantee a remedy for every mid-life crisis

It has been raining most of the time since I got here - it stopped last night for a few hours and I was able to wander the streets a bit. 

There are temples and offerings everywhere - the offerings show up in doorways and along paths and streets, on shelves and tables. In fact there is one right in front of my doorway, no one else's. I have to step over it to go inside - I don't dare move it. I don't know if this means I have good juju or if I need the bad spirits chased away. Every place you go, women are constantly putting together these offerings, making little bowls of palms leaves filled with colorful flower blossoms and smoking incense.  

Amazing amazing birds here - from my second floor veranda overlooking the rice paddy I am even with the trees and have a "bird's eye view" of dozens of colorful species. 

So Jati Homestay - you walk in off the most busy bustling street, where your life is at stake everytime you cross it, and go down a long paved pathway between two properties and into a compound of family houses were several generations live and work,  descend some stone steps and there, along a waterway, amid gardens and a jungle of greenery is the two-story guesthouse with woven wicker walls and bamboo furniture and elegant Balinese woodworking. So quiet, so lovely and restful - one can usually hear strains of Balinese music always across the rice paddy - gamelins? drums? - but it is a miracle in the midst of the noisy, trafficky city - there is no urban noise at all. It so wonderful to duck out of the overstimulating street and rest the senses. And, it is, of course, perfect for sleeping. Apparently no one can make noise after 10:30 in Ubud. I may blow off Sanur and just come back here after Lombok. Then I could leave some of my stuff as well.

This morning I went to the market and bought a few incredibly cheap things and bargained my brains out after reading somewhere that they absolutely expected you to do so. It feels ruthless but so right - when they said 100, I said 50 and learned the art of walking away to get the price I wanted. Every time I bought something, the vendor would take the money I gave them and touch things all around the stall with it, "for good luck" because I was the first sale of the morning (it was not early) and in fact several times I was told I was getting "good luck morning price." 

There is so much I don't understand about this Balinese culture. Everything is so ancient - the buildings look old because they have been standing for 400 years. Dewa, one of the family members, who picked me up at the airport, talked to me at length on the way here, explaining the various Hindu gods and the 4 kinds of temples - family, functional, Brahmin (I think) and some other kind and how everyone in Ubud does art for relaxation and that at least 10 generations of his family have lived in this compound and worshiped at their family temple, which is private and guests cannot enter. 
Many restaurants here have these wonderful opium-den style cushioned seats, where you can stretch out on cushions next to a low table and settle in for endless hours. No one will ever give you your bill unless you ask for it. I have literally seen people take naps in these comfy alcoves.

The end of this very wet tropical day was at Balinese dance performance. Accompanied by a gamelin orchestra, the performance style was totally unique - not dance as we know it, but storytelling in elaborate costumes, with expressive hand gestures, facial expressions and body postures. In the last piece, there was even interaction with the audience - the monkey came over to me and made me kiss him and then accept the offering of one of the pantomimed fleas that he had groomed off of himself. Alternating between endless and incomprehensible and fascinating and dazzling, it was all excellent entertainment.