Bali: Day 3 to Ubud

Our goal today was Ubud, we had told Jeni we would wait for her to drive up there, as she had an early business meeting.  After a lazy morning, we decided to fuel up the bikes.  We cruised around until we found a proper petrol station, opting not to purchase the petrol in the absolute bottles from the roadside stands.  Once the scooters were topped up we attempted to get back to the hotel.  We took a circuitous route and at one point we found ourselves separated from Kurt.  Fortunately we managed to find our way to the beach and from there back towards Leigan and our hotel.  Kurt arrived not too long after.  After a yummy Indonesian lunch at Three Brothers we took off on the trip to Ubud.  It took approximately 2 hours to get there and the highlight was getting stopped by the police at a registration check point.  My fake international driver’s license passed the test and we were back on the road.  (By the time we learned we needed get an international license it was too late to get one.   Apparently if you don’t have one you just bribe the policeman with 50,000 rupiah (~ $5 USD.)  Good thing we didn’t have to bribe a policeman.

Once in Ubud we took a quick spin around the center and then found a place to stay.  The neat thing about Bali are all the temples they have around the place.  They practice Hinduism and every home and building has a small, with some having a larger more elaborate, offering area.  Our hotel had some very neat statues and arches where they placed their daily offerings.

For dinner we went for a local special called crispy duck.  We choose the Dirty Duck restaurant, because it was supposed to have the best crispy duck in town.  It was a real neat place; we sat outside on an elevated platform at the edge of a rice field.  The duck didn’t look like much more than an overly fried breast and wing, but did it ever taste good.  We also tried berem, the local liquor.  It went down easy considering it tasted like lemonade, but a bit more potent.  We topped off the meal with a rich chocolate cake for dessert.  Very decadent!