Tahoe Johnson’s Journey to Southeast Asia

After a few days in the busy beach area of Kuta/Legian in the southern part of Bali, we headed into the interior of the island, to the “artsy” town of Ubud. It reminded me of a Balinese “Napa” – lots of nice restaurants, beautiful, serene scenery, and art galleries. Ubud has always been known as a center for the arts, but even more  so after famous European artists hung out here in the 1930s. Ubud was one of my favorite places, but not really a place for kids. There wasn’t a lot to “DO” – it was more a place you just hung out and took in the spirit of the place. There was every shade of green imaginable – from the terraced rice paddies to the jungle out the back door. Before arriving, we had a few places in mind to stay, but the taxi driver thatdrove us toUbud “had a friend” (as usual) who had a guesthouse which ended up being perfect. It was down a quiet lane through the rice paddies, and near a river, which you could hear gurgling below. We had a patio with a beautiful view of the jungle beyond.

The view down into our “yard”

Looking out the window

The Monkey Forest

River rafting company

Lunch after rafting

Amazing stone carvings on the doors to homes and temples

One of the nice restaurants (above). This rice paddy was being readied for planting. Must have been a beautiful spot when the fields were green.

Learning batik at a home studio

Tasha LOVED the silver-smithing classes she took – one in Thailand and one here in Ubud. Here are the results of her classes.

Much to the kids’ amusement, I couldn’t get enough of these rice terraces

Volcano country. This lake is at the foot of one of Bali’s 3 volcanos

Different kind of pine tree

Our neighborhood internet cafe

“Melon heads” Another day on a motorbike

Just family shots

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.