We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.
- Kahlil Gibran, Lebanon
Incredible. Lush. Fertile. Absolutely bound to knock your sarong off. Will write more, got to go and take an evening dive in my own villa's infinity pool and get lost at the panoramic jungle oblivion.
Love from Ubud, day 1
Love from Ubud, day 1
Retrospectively speaking...
It was an all right flight as I am never patient enough to endure anything within the confines of a plane's seat, but I have enough enthusiasm for travel that spans as far as eternal condemnation of a desert. But hell I was not to face as our little friendly pick-up at the airport ushered us into our mini van. Fresh towels and cold bottled water, with a wilting frangipani flower thrown in for effect. Oscar deserving.
Before we left the airport's sardine-packed parking lot, I noticed a sign board asking for nobody to piss on the lot. Charming. Funny. I already like this adventure!
Making our way through the busy Denpasar area, we came upon immediately gigantic sculptures of mythological characters (bigger than Ben Hur) of the Ramayana, and another of a mythical warrior going about his rounds of WWF with a giant serpent for the holy water. It was at your face, strategically gobsmacked in the middle of the town's busy Kuta roundabout. With noisy traffic kicking up a dusty trail and our little van meshed in between, it felt like a totally wild run in between a circle of cock fights. Adrenaline pumping stuff this is (in Yoga style... see, humour brewing!).
As we made our way up North, we passed by idyllic cute roads, or lanes seem more an apt description. Being in Ubud meant that our eyes were glued to the sceneries outside. We probably looked like ferrets on the watch, turning out heads right and left incessantly to look at lanes of traders, exhibiting their trade of stone carving, wood carving, (our driver claimed that his grandfather was the undisputed champion in this field... yeah sure, if we get a 120% price decrease on it, does it count?), canvas painting (which we stopped over at a koperasi and bought home a wall-sized original abstract by I Putu Ardika, an upcoming artist based in Denpasar), and the initial glow, on the contrary, only became warmer as we seized upon an opening of the roads to Mother Nature as an artist. Yards expanding to hint at horizons, lush green padi fields beckoned us ahead. By now, a light drizzle had set down and our tummies grumbling like thunder. Of course we tried to get (convinced) our driver to take us to sample local food (read: not touristy menu) and after much debate (I think he wanted to take us to see his grandfather's work instead), we asked him to take us straight to the Ubud Hanging Gardens. We were actually situated in Payangan, off Kota Ubud. I would never get tired of the padi fields. The cool late afternoon air filled my mind with romantic notion of a private time away from the world. Stress be gone!
And indeed we were not disappointed. The villa was adequately sized for a couple, with its outside pavillion or pondok and wooden deck that led to an outside shower (I mean, wasn't the inside one with its huge display of the melur petals enough? Are you kidding!) however, the lap pool, heated at a constant 29 degrees Celsius (we are in the highlands after all...) was the killer attraction. With only one neighbouring villa and none of the other side, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Cheesy I know, but exactly the point.
