Goodbye and rice fields walk

We said goodbye to Fiona and James on Friday evening – with our favourite evening rituals – drinks on the Cendana balcony overlooking the pool followed by another wonderful meal at Ibu Rai (and coriander duck and mushroom ravioli for all the grown ups tonight!!).

We have enjoyed our week in Ubud together very much and getting to know Fiona, James and William so much better as a result. We’ve all promised to find another opportunity to share more good times together in the future (maybe even in Bali?).

So we’re left with just the 6 of us now – the Canberra mob, and another set of adventures to enjoy……...

We were up early on Saturday morning – fighting off the French hikers at breakfast to get started on the rice fields walk before there was too much heat in the sun.

We ended up walking a couple of hours, through the rice fields north of the village, enjoying the lush green landscape of the plantings and signs of farming and village life all around us. 

With the rice almost ready for harvest there was a big focus on inventive bird scarers in all the fields, which I found very picturesque.

Rob and I have done this walk lots of times before but we were  struck this time by how many more scooters were making their way along the narrow walking paths and how many more villas and little warungs had sprouted up in the past few years.

We had a good long talk with this gentleman who was the owner of Jogolo Ubud, a homestay and organic vegie garden in the rice fields – comprising an original timber building from Java (Dutch era) that he’d had reconstructed (very painstakingly) here in Ubud. He seemed to enjoy engaging with us about all the challenges he faced and how the local temple and Sabak (Traditional irrigation system) worked.

We had no luck trying the famous Sari Organik Café in the rice fields as it was closed on Saturday due to it being used as a venue for one of the Ubud Writers Festival presentations. We did mange to find ourselves a lovely cool spot with fruit drinks at the Pomegranate Café however.

We took things slowly on Saturday afternoon – a swim in the pool and late lunch at Tutmak. There’s not much of the day left if you want to squeeze in some shopping, some snoozing and more G & Ts before dinner!!