Ubud 1

I was due to move on to Ubud sometime during the day and the most convenient time was between 1000 and 1400 when both lodgings would be doing their housekeeping. I took another morning walk on Sanur beach and had a snack before returning to my room to pack. I was torn between catching the cheaper Perama shuttle bus or summoning a Grab car. In the end when I eyeballed the walking distance from the terminal in Ubud from the map, I went for Grab. It was cheap anyway.

Along the way up the hills we encountered a bit of traffic. Bali roads are narrow and traffic jams are endemic. The driver told me that not surprisingly regular taxis disliked the intrusion of ride sharing services.

At Ubud my room was not ready so I left my luggage with them and went looking for lunch. According to the Internet, Fair Warung Bale served good food and the proceeds go towards local humanitarian services. While I wanted for my nasi goreng, I read some of the uplifting sayings on the wall.

I was on the first floor and there was another nice restaurant across the street which I never got to try though.

Bintang (star) beer is what they drink in Bali and the rest of Indonesia.

My tasty nasi goreng with prawn and tomato.

Unfortunately it decided to thunderstorm in the afternoon so I slept it off in my room.

In the evening I decided to eat close to the guesthouse in a nearby Italian restaurant. The capricciosa pizza was very good. A less tasty pizza would have been too salty, but this one was made with a light touch and good to the last slice.

The rain petered out leaving the streets wet. This gelateria attracted me because of the deep purple dragon fruit flavour.

I walked west along the main drag of Ubud, taking pictures. This was a restaurant or bar with detailed outside decoration.

You can see how narrow the main street is.

Denpasar food tour

I had signed up for an evening Bali street food tour in Denpasar. As it turned out I was the only client. My guide, Ratih, said that the volcano had caused cancellations of bookings across the sector.

We had a car and a driver. We started in an upmarket coffee shop. Coffee was not brought by the Dutch but by traders from Lombok. It grows well in the highlands of Indonesian islands. Traditionally coffee is an after-work pick-me-up taken with a side of banana fritters. In the past, locals could only afford robusta, exporting the arabica. With rising income, Indonesians now frequent coffee shops.

Next at a warung, we had tipat tahu Gerenceng, comprising boiled bean sprouts, rice cake, tofu, omlette, kropok (prawn cracker), and peanut sauce. It was quite similar to rojak in SEA. Incidentally the choices are curated by the guide so you might get a different tour with another guide, which is part of the charm. It was also thus in Da Nang, Vietnam.

Next, at a roadside store, we had nasi jinggo, which is a combination of rice with chicken, fried tempe, noodle, and sambal. It was very cheap, only about a dollar or two if I recall and is a popular late night snack. One story claims that jinggo is named Django, a spaghetti western of that time, 1966. The sambal was quite spicy.

We took a walk through the outdoor wet market where locals shop for their fresh food.

Bali is full of statuary and the Balinese are observant of traditions.

Soto is probably Indonesia's national dish, found all across the archipelago. It's any of a multitude of variations of broth with meat and vegetables.

I didn't take a picture of the sate kambing (goat satay) and gulai which is the thick sauce accompanying. I found this one a bit off-putting due to the fatty meat.

This is serabi, a rice pancake with coconut milk, and shredded coconut.

Finally we ended the tour with a hot drink containing ginger.

Sanur

I had arranged to stay 2 days in Sanur, 2 in Ubud and finishing up with 1 day in Legian. According to traveller information, Sanur is a beach area with an older crowd and more laid back than the areas on the west coast, such as Seminyak, Legian, and Kuta, in order of touristiness.

Due to the timezone difference I woke early about 0600, ate a müsli bar I had brought, and walked to the ATM on the main road. The night before I had failed with my chosen card so fell back on a secondary card. I thought maybe it might be a matter of credit versus savings in the dialogue. It wasn't. Then I realised that I had not set the PIN since receiving a new card. I went back to my guesthouse to use the WiFi to set the PIN using my smartphone because I didn't have a local SIM yet. The second attempt worked.

The guesthouse's breakfast was small but adequate as a second breakfast. The beach was about 10 minutes walk from the guesthouse. Beachside restaurants were open for business. Some of them were attached to resorts but accepted other clientele. Breakfast, nap, swim, nap, lunch, nap, swim, nap, dinner, what a life. Most tourists used the hotel pools though.

I then turned my attention to the inland road running parallel to the beach promenade. Sanur's shops are situated here and also the road entries to the resorts.

Along the way I visited the local supermarket to try to get a SIM, but no vendors there.

I explored the small market. The usual collection of fruit, vege and meat stalls.

It was nearby that I found a shop that sold me a data SIM for a couple of dollars, with far more quota than I could possibly use. Having the Internet on my smartphone was very useful for checking maps and tourist information.

For lunch I decided to have a late breakfast at Luhtu's. An "American" breakfast was very cheap. WItty one-liners decorated the counter. Their coffee was lauded on the Internet but I didn't find it compelling. Perhaps I was more used to other blends back home.

This pigeon coop was constructed by the Balinese to provide the birds with a home.

Water and flowers are used a lot in Bali. Every morning you will find small religious offerings of flowers on the doorstep of shops and homes.

Mid-afternoon snack was a fried chicken wrap with salad including avocado at a warung (stall) just outside my guesthouse. It was tasty and cheap.

A garish decoration outside a nightspot. I detected tourists from all over the world. The ones that came from further away were staying longer. A Dutch couple at the warung were spending 3 weeks on Bali.

I returned to my guesthouse to nap until my guide for the evening food tour picked me up.

In the shadow of the volcano

In mid-September, after I had booked the flight and accommodation, Bali's Mount Agung awoke from slumber and the alert level was raised. Its last major eruption was in 1963 and over a thousand people were killed by the flows. Bali is sizeable enough that the tourist areas are far enough away from Mount Agung to pose no threat, although villagers living with the exclusion zone had to be evacuated. However, ash from a volcano eruption is deleterious to jet engines and could cause flight delays or even cancellations.

As the departure day approached, I found myself wishing that the eruption would be over with before my travel. It was not to be. A fallout from the alert was that my flight with Virgin Australia made an additional stop in Darwin to take on more fuel in case the flight had to be diverted back to Darwin. The result was that I arrived close to midnight. With the timezone difference it felt like 3 am. I had booked a taxi to transport me to my lodgings in Sanur. It was a bit expensive but I didn't want to waste any time looking for transport on arrival. Fortunately Bali's notorious traffic had already subsided by that hour.