Day 14-15: Bedugul

Here are a few pictures from around our hotel, which really was very beautiful.  It consisted of a courtyard, a 'front desk' (which was outside), a pool, and several bungalows.

At the entrance

Our terrace

The inside of our spacious (but otherwise basic) bungalow

In the afternoons someone would place flowery offerings on the statues and in the walkway around our bungalow

The courtyard

A typical breakfast that was included with our stay.   Cute: yes.  Small:  yes.  Extremely salty or sweet: yes.

A local monster snail

Finally it was time to leave Ubud and head to a smaller and hopefully less touristy town in the mountains.  We had booked a nice hotel in Bedugul, a village in the center of the island.  When we told our driver where we would be staying, he suggested a place that was half the cost.  He offered to let us check it out and if we didn't like it he would drive us back to our original hotel.  We figured that since we had a choice then this wouldn't be a scam.  After checking out both places, we settled on the cheaper option, mostly based on its location right on Lake Bratan; the other hotel was fancier but more isolated.  Though this accommodation was cheaper, it was also pretty darn dirty and had no A/C.  Ironically, not having A/C wasn't a problem in the typical sense--the weather was refreshingly cool in the highlands--but the A/C would have been very useful to keep things dry.  Because it was the rainy season (thanks, Southern Hemisphere), everything remained damp, including our towels and sheets, and if anything got wet in the rain, there was no hope for it to dry.  Oh, and I dreamt of bed bugs at night. 

Pigs en route to Bedugul

Since we left the tourist town of Ubud, we were able to find actual Balinese food.  We finally got to try the local favorite, Bakso ayam (chicken meatball soup with noodles, fried tofu, and hard boiled egg).  All these stalls sold this soup, and only this soup.

Bakso ayam

The ultimate irony: deep fried spinach

We dodged raindrops to visit the nearby market in Candikuning.  The cool weather made this region the vegetable capital of Bali, and they also grew lots of strawberries. 

Deluxe Western Toilets, hehe.

The only real good thing about this hotel was its view of the lake and mountain and close proximity to town.

I liked this corn and cabbage sculptur

Our hotel visible at night

Dinner by the rain.  The trick was to order multiple entrees.

Our crappy hotel room.  Pretty much everything was wrong with it.  In addition to the damp sheets and towels, one of two of the ceiling light bulbs was out, we were constantly out of toilet paper, the sink pipe dripped onto the floor, and at one point in the evening the water stopped.  We told the office and the security guard had to go down to the lake in the pouring rain to fix the water pump.  With all the problems, I felt lucky to wake up the next morning.

At least the room had a nice view

In the morning I went to see the peaceful temple Ulun Danu, built on an island in the lake. 

Even when it wasn't raining we typically saw more mist than mountain

 

We spent a bit more time wandering around the market

 

Some very nice foods!

There were lots of Muslims here, if you couldn't guess by the posters

The road to the market

A popular jack fruit (or is it durian?) truck

Our fruit haul (sapote, mangosteen, mini bananas, red dragon fruit, and mango)

 

This is a petrol station for motorbikes

Another nice dinner!  I loved how they used lots of tempeh in their dishes. 

For some reason the security guard, Made (yes, pretty much everyone was named Made or Ketut) liked hanging out with us and wanted to take photos with us. 

Even though we escaped the tourist crowds, we were still treated as tourists in Bedugul.  People were slightly creepy and were just as desperate to sell us crap as they were in Ubud.  One of the drivers we met showed us hand crafts he was selling, and when we refused he followed us around trying to get us to go to his village, probably to sell us a ride.  Even a police officer I met at the temple tried to offer me a lift, and I was suspicious he would expect some sort of payment.  I just love what tourism can do to otherwise very wonderful people.