A day in Ubud

One of the advantages of staying in a small hotel run by a local family is that they are on smallish lots of land, in amongst the rice paddies still being farmed by the villagers of Ubud - even though the income from leasing/selling land to hotel interests is somewhat higher than the rice yield brings these days.  

This means we can sit on the shaded balcony of our deluxe villa, drinking ginger tea (in the morning) or Bintangs (if it is later) and watch the rhythm of a working day in Ubud unfold before us.  It's taken the pair in the photo above (a man and a woman) the last two days to harvest the rice in the three small paddies in front of our villas.  The only tools they have are a sickle and a netted basket arrangement for collecting the seed from the bundles of rice stalks they shake vigorously against the edge of the basket.

Through our villa's bathroom window we can watch the construction of new villas at the back of ours.  Women are doing all the preparation for the foundations, carting loads of fill and rocks in from busy Monkey Forest Road, on their heads, while a male supervisor tells them where to place things (while he smokes a cigarette!).  This woman was carrying two large boulders on her head.

Which she delivered with precision to the designated pile.

By this evening the three paddies were cleared, around 6 bags of rice were collected and the ducks were let loose into the now empty paddy.  Their delighted quacking created quite an uproar in everyone's peaceful late afternoon.

We didn't spend the whole day watching other people working very hard.  We spent a few hours wandering the fascinating little laneways of this gorgeous village, noting the huge increase in traffic and movement around 12.30pm when morning school ends, and before afternoon school starts.

It was much steamier today in Ubud so we took regular cold drink stops.  Our best find today was Miro's Garden Restaurant, in the main street of Ubud down near the bridge over the Campuhan River.

Lunch was at Tutmak's and we returned John's hospitality tonight by taking him to dinner at our favourite Bumbu Bali.  I had smoked duck and tried not to think of all those cute ducks quacking delightedly outside my villa this afternoon.

I was also hoping someone was cooking a nice meal for those amazing women building the new villas next door, load by load, carried on their slender necks!