We have been in Ubud, Bali for 3 weeks and we absolutely love this little town. After a week in the first accommodation we chose, we booked other accommodations in various areas in and around Ubud to discover different places and more important the restaurants and wonderful local cuisine.
From a
For us wifi, aircon and proximity to restaurants are three of the most important criteria when choosing a place to stay. A swimming pool is a welcoming feature after a hot day in the sun too!
We also visited Monkey Forest and the Tegallalang rice terraces with a private guide. This seems to be the best way to get around Ubud and see things Bali has to offer. We found our driver, Komang, via the owner of our favourite little Warung (local restaurant). Toyota seems to have the biggest market share in Bali and almost everybody drives around in a Toyota Avanza or alternatively on a scooter. Although the traffic is hectic, everybody seems tolerant and fortunately, we haven’t seen any accident yet. Just be aware of motorbike licensing requirements, as sometimes you are not insured and you, therefore, have to pay for the 3rd party damage if there is an accident.
On the island, there is also GoJek (Uber equivalent in Indonesia), but they are so cheap that the local taxi services are trying to stop them by banning them in central Ubud. A classic example of modern “disruption” as defined in pop culture. For us, it works perfectly and so far we had great experiences with the local GoJek drivers. The taxi services in town are way too expensive, in my view. For instance: 1 km transfer with GoJek IDR 17.000, taxi service at least IDR 50.000. So by waiting in sideroads or around a corner, we are still getting around with the GoJek service 😉
And then of course the main part: FOOD.
For the first week we rented a self catering apartment and thought we would make breakfast and lunches ourselves to cut down on costs. We found out really soon that the (Western) food in the supermarkets wasn’t cheap at all. A tub of yoghurt for instance is about IDR 88.000 (€ 5.50), this is way more expensive than even in Europe. The other thing that’s outrageously expensive is alcohol: a bottle of cheap South African wine in the supermarket will cost you around IDR 350.000 (€ 22.50), so for now we’re drinking water or local beer and go for the happy hour (cocktails) wherever we can find them.
After the visit to the
On the 12th of February, we are taking a night flight to Chiang Mai (Thailand) to explore more of Asia!
Please keep on following us on our daring culinary journey!