Walking Ubud 2

We started walking pretty early Monday morning - down to the Campuhan River end of Jalan Raya Ubud, and the start of the popular Ridge walk.

The school here at the start of the ridge walk seems to have become a hospitality school. It was funny to see the kids outside practising their cocktail shaker twirls as their first lesson of the day???

You get good views of the Campuhan River at the start of the walk.

But the track quickly opens up for us to see the more familiar village houses and ricefields along the ridge.

We were struck by this construction site along the way - obviously a large villa being built. But it was troubling to see the young man cutting those lengths of steel (with sparks flying everywhere) with no gloves or eye protection. 

The site construction office ..........

More familiar scenes along the ridge walk ...............

A fresh young coconut juice stop is always needed along the way ..... we like the lotus pond and views at the Karsa Cafe ......

We were alarmed to see our favourite Indus Restaurant over on the opposite ridge to our walking track - but apparently without its roof, and looking like a construction site! (more about that later)

It seems that even our humble Campuhan Ridge walk is having its Instagram moment too. It seems that these "swings" in pretty settings are all the rage now - especially with young women - the pictures go straight to Instagram of course.

 We spent a while in the pool after our long walk before heading to Bodyworks on Jalan Hanoman for our long awaited Ayurvedic massage. I took this pic of Rob afterwards looking as spaced out as we both usually do after the intensity of the Bodyworks experience!

Late afternoon we headed back to Casa Luna in Jalan Raya Ubud to catch the shuttle up to The Indus for dinner. We'd already ascertained that the restaurant was still open - it had just moved temporarily while the main building was being "renovated".  We caught a busy moment on the main street of Ubud as all the kids walked out of school at 5.30pm.

This is the new Indus in its temporary accommodation! Two large open pavillions - much simpler than the original - but still pleasant enough, but without that certain Indus wow factor I must say.

One Mojito for now - one for later (it's happy hour!)

The food at the Indus still has the wow factor though. We always eat well in Ubud but this food is just wonderful - that's a beautiful Balinese fish curry in the coconut !

It was Latin night at the Indus. I even had a dance with one of the older guys (Canadian). He filled us in on the local Ubud Dance scene - and he was a great dancer himself. All those lessons we did with Bec back in Canberra weren't wasted!

We finished off the night back at the Laughing Buddha bar back near our hotel on Monkey Forest Road. The last time we saw the Unb'rocken band they were backing an impromptu gig by Guy Sebastian at the same bar - much to the delight of the patrons (and passers by). The music scene is lively here in Ubud. There are great bands playing everywhere you go.

Just love this place!