FFFRRRIIIIIDDDAAAAYYYYYYYYYY: Ubud, the sleepy yogi town; and Kuta Beach, party central

It was difficult for me to get used to the idea of having to go home, and thinking about it distracted me a lot from enjoying Ubud...probably it's a whole lot of a nicer town than my clouded mind let me understand.

Still, Ubud is small, cultural, cute, and has a lot of character. For being so small (population 30,000) it sure has managed to become the centre for a lot of things in Indonesia like art, yoga, and culture. Why it's all concentrated here I don't know? Should probably google it :)

I liked Ubud. It was actually bigger than I had expected but even so only had three main streets. The most noteworthy thing about Ubud was the shopping. The number of jewellery and clothing & souvenir shops was pretty impressive, there was no room for anything else in the whole town. Some of the people I met there only went for the shopping! I wish I had more space in my backpack, as I would've wanted to load up on all the beautiful things I saw.

Another thing I noticed about Ubud was the amount of yoga centres, shops, and yogis - there were more in Ubud than London I bet! I knew Ubud had become yoga central in Southeast Asia but I didn't expect this. I like yoga, it makes me feel great and the retreat in Thailand was enjoyable to the max. But there is only so much yoga talk I can take, it was a little overwhelming.

Finally I will always remember Ubud as the town that had the worst death trap pavements I have ever seen. You really had to pay attention as you were walking down the streets there, as it would have been too easy to trip in the uneven pavements or step into one of the many huge deep holes right in the middle of the walkways.

It rained quite a lot during the few days I stayed there. Sometimes the rain would last for the whole day, and sometimes it came out of the blue and stopped just as abruptly to make way for clear blue skies. There was no way to tell what the weather would be like the next day. I almost booked a sunrise trek to Mount Batur when I was there but in the end I didn't dare to as I was afraid it would rain and the whole experience would be torture. But when it was sunny man was it hot! Luckily there is a monkey forest in Ubud, which I visited one day to get a break from the heat. It's outdoors; but the trees are so high and dense that it provides the perfect shade from the midday sun. It was like a scene from the Jungle Book, temples covered in green moss and vine like vegetation, little monkeys running around chasing each other.

I stayed in Ubud for three days. I probably would have stayed longer if it wasn't for my old PT Ross from London who happened to be in Bali at the same time, and so I decided to go and meet him on Kuta beach. There's no real public transport in Bali so I had to take a taxi for the two hour drive from Ubud to Kuta beach. It didn't break the bank luckily as it only cost USD20!

Market stall selling silver jewellery

Kuta beach was, if you ask me, hell. Poppies lanes one and two was where the concentration of shops and bars were, and this is where I stayed. Kuta beach has nothing original about it; its' malls selling all western brands, clubs playing music too loudly, and very, very, drunken tourists. Seeing Ross after such a long time was awesome. In fact, it was so much fun I think I got a bit carried away as somehow going out for one beer with him and his travelling buddy Tom Tom resulted in a 1 am speedboat ticket purchase back to the Gili Islands the next morning. So....at 11am I somehow found myself with my feet a few metres from Gili Trawangan's shore. Funny how things go sometimes. So much for discovering new places....oh well, there's always next time!