Visiting Ubud with Donovan and Carrie in Bali

Ubud is the usual place Kuta based travelers look to for a day trip.

Ubud and its many surriounding villages is a center for arts and crafts and I got to drive Donovan and Carrie there for a half day trip.

Traffic seemed especially heavy yesterday and I was glad to be the one driving as it wouldn’t be very relaxing for a newcomer. The trick in driving a car in Bali is to make your presence known using the horn and time your runs around parked cars according to the oncoming traffic. You can be a little more aggressive than normal as you need to get into the gap and through it to avoid a collision. Don’t worry thel ocals all know the drill and will hit the brakes if they think you will hit them. Other than that I just try to be careful of motorbikes and random things like kaki lima vendors and pedestrians going for a moonwalk across the Bypass.

Arriving on Jl. Raya Ubud after the hour plus drive I was feeling hungry and offered lunch at Casa Luna, one of the many decent places downtown. Casa Luna has a quiet relaxed atmosphere that also has a certain style. My dish was Balinese paella featuring yellow rice, squid, clams, tuna in a tomato based sauce that was slightly hot. The price was 45,000rp and was very nice. We topped of lunch with an arak madu (arak, honey, lemon) which definitely did the trick.

After lunch I suggested checking out a couple of the funky little art places had previously visited. The first was Museum Blanco, the tribute and former home of Antonio Blanco whose eccentric works of erotic art are celebrated here.

Blanco was a good painter but the lavish / eccentic nature of the place is really quite funny. Paintings have massive gold leaf embellished frames and the gallery is painted in vivid colors.

Our guide, Kadek from nearby Penestenan showed us Blanco’s studio and his ‘erotic art collection’. Donovan and Carrie got a kick out of it espcially when Kadek eagerly started showing us the odd little pieces. There was one piece which featured a Playboy photo of a lady on all fours on the beach. “She has lost her soap and it has fallen to the bottom of the ocean,” said Kadek. The piece had all kinds of fish and sea plants drawn in and the model had a carving of pot protruding from her rear. “Would you like to say 1,2,3?” said Kadek. We obliged and she pulled the top off the pot to reveal and unobstructed view of the model. There were a few more of these and the campy nature as well as innocent little Kadek showing us was just hilarious.

Museum Blanco can be visited in an hour and admission is 20,000rp

Museum Blanco does have good art and eleborate design and his son has a his own display off to the side, featuring paintings of plants and fruit.

Our next trip was 50 yards up th street to Symon’s Art Zoo. This American painter has a great studio which is free to visit. His prefered style is super vivid colors of Balinese nude males. There is a certain sense of humor here and the whole place can be visited in 20 minutes, admission is free.

Taking the same road north through Campuhan and round through Lungsiakan to Sayan where we stopped at Gaya Fusion of Senses for a refreshing watermelon juice ( Carrie going for the Bintang, that’s the O’Callahan in her ).

Donovan and Carrie were thinking of doing a rafting day sometime on there visit to Bali and I passed SOBEK, the company that specializes in adventure sports close to Gaya. I told Donovan that we are now in the middle of ther dry season and the wet season would be the best time for raging rivers. They will probably skip the rafting but surfing is definitely on the menu.

We were all feeling wiped out after the driving and tourism and decided to head back to Seminyak. I suggest people take the time to check out Ubud and its various parts by renting a motorbike and staying for a while, maybe take an art of cooking course. This part of Bali offers a pleasant change from tourist central Kuta / Seminyak.