We were starting from Kuta around 9.20 am and cruising out through the busy traffic of Legian and Seminyak. It took us about 40 minutes to get out of the bustling city to more of remote villages with scenic green paddy field. We made a stop by a vast green paddy field just to share a bit about the farming and the traditional irrigation system while enjoying the scenery over the green rice paddies. Along the way, I was sharing about the village's system, traditional family compound and how the people manage their daily life out in the country side.
We got the Taman, where my village is and we made a stop as I wanted to show them the cocoa tree as they never seen any cocoa tree before but they are absolutely in love with chocolate so it was wonderful to let them see how they grow. I took them to my home and show them how I live. They seemed to be happy and I showed them about some Spiders who are building their web around my garden and they are kind of huge ones but for sure that they are not poisonous and not harmful for us. So they did take some pictures of them and it would make my spiders are being famous and I am sure that they were very happy, too.
We left my home and drove back on the quiet village street while keep looking out at all the different vegetations and farms around the village. We went to a big Banyan tree that grows on the outer courtyard of a village temple and took some great pictures of this giant tree with its amazing roots that hanging down from the high branches which almost conquering quit an area outside the temple. Banyan is one of the trees that is considered to be a sacred tree for Balinese Hindu and it grows perfectly almost all over the island.
After the village, our next destination was the sacred Volcano of Batur. We decided to go up to the volcano and see Ubud on the way back as it seems it was about to rain and we did not want to miss the view over the Caldera. We kept on driving all the way to the volcano and caught in some down pour along the way but it was stopped by the time that we got to the volcano and the view was there and not much of a fog in the air so we could see the volcano quit well. I let them to take some photos of the volcano and the lake. As the time was a little bit after noon, so I suggested them to have their lunch first before heading down to Ubud, so they could enjoy the view over the Volcano and the lake for a bit longer while enjoying their meal. We left the volcano after lunch and taking another road down to Ubud through Tegalalang to have a quick look at the scenic rice terraces. It was load of tourists and street vendors so I decided not to make a stop there as I did not want them to be bothered by those vendors. We continued down to Ubud and driving through the local villages with their craft's shop along both side of the street. We took the back roads down to the center of Ubud which would allow us to see better scenery over the green paddy field with stunning coconut trees. It was truly the right time as most of the rice was just about ready to be harvested so it was offering us quit a great view with its golden color.
We did not stop at the center of Ubud but straight to the monkey forest as Sarah was so keen to see the monkey and she was mentioning it for a number of times while we were driving. We got the monkey forest and it was quite busy with tourists as always. We watched the monkeys in this little forest for a while and took pictures of those funny animals. They were truly entertaining and fun to watch. We could easily spend a day just watching them playing around, jumping from tree to tree and sometime they just caught in a fight with other monkeys.
We did not see much around Ubud as they wanted to go down to Jimbaran beach for their sea food dinner and seeing the sunset. We drive back down south through Kuta again and got in Jimbaran around 5 PM, it was a bit cloudy but the sun was there. Sunset was not the best but it was good enough to watch while enjoying the tasty sea food barbeque and listening to the waves break on shore on the white sand beach and watching the fishermen with their beautiful boats going out to the sea for fishing.