I hopped on the hotel shuttle into Ubud. It drops off twice a day and picks up twice a day at the grocery store.
The weather forecast said over a 50% chance of thunderstorms. It sprinkled for about 10 minutes. The rest of the time it was sunny and very warm. Not hot, thankfully, especially with the humidity. My linen shirt and trousers with a Marino wool tee and travel boxer briefs were the right outfit. Even my slowly disintegrating Allbirds were the right choice. Sandals would provide too little protection and my hiking books would have been a foot baking apparatus … an oven, if you will.
I walked around a lot. The town reminds me of Mexico City in its ramshackle nature and also Japan in the Buddhist temples and statuary all over. Actually, it exceeds Japan in that regard. There is no place here without some idol or offering.
I tired of taking pictures out of sheer volume.
The monkey park, however, lacked not for interest and cute!
Side note: There are more including a whole raft of videos that iOS kindly neglected to import or tell me about. It was more than happy to delete them from the SD card. I am saving this for when I get home. I can I delete the files.
Apple, get your act together.
Meanwhile, I set my camera to MP4 video recording.
The food is fantastic. I've gone mostly vegetarian so far with only a little bit of chicken and egg in the mix. Bintang, the omnipresent national beer, is kind of perfect for here. It's a Pilsner, so it's light in flavor and low in alcohol. It still tastes like beer, is inexpensive, and is safer than the tap water.
Speaking of water, the resort offers two large glass bottles of water in the room. They can be refilled at a spigot near the restaurant. That seems reasonable.
As I sit here on a comfy chair listening to the crickets or cicadas or whatever wildlife on one side and the little kids in the pool on the other, I'm reminded that I am half way around the world from where I was born.
I'm relaxed right now, tired from the day and a little bit buzzed from the beer. I'm considering another night in. Tomorrow might be a read by the pool and spend some time at the spa day.
They call it a resort for a reason.
More soon!
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