Musings from an Anchored Traveler: Ubud to Legian, Bali

Checkout was at noon, so after breakfast and our morning meeting, Linda and I wanted to check out the other properties associated with the Alam hotel group. We stayed at the Alam Indah, but just down the street there was also the Alam Shanti and the Alam Jiwa. They were both beautiful, but we still liked ours the best because of its seclusion and its proximity to the Monkey Forest. We then returned to the Monkey Forest to see the real thing, not just the back road. Man do we wish we’d gone there sooner! We didn’t have nearly enough time. There were monkeys EVERYWHERE. People were holding them, feeding them, they were swinging from trees and lounging on statues. It was amazing. Plus the reserve looked like something out of Indiana Jones. Why didn’t anyone tell us how totally cool it was?? As we walked, a monkey jumped onto Linda’s backpack that she was wearing, but when it realized she didn’t have any food, it leaped off. I was trying to get a photo, but all I got was a gray blur leaping from her backpack back to the railing. Lol. I was too nervous to let them touch me. If I’d been in the US I would have...but if I got scratched or bitten in Bali, I’d have to go get a bunch of shots in a foreign hospital and we didn’t have time or desire for that! However, everyone who encountered them said they had a very gentle and soft touch. Their fingers and toes are a lot like ours, so they have finger pads, not long nails that scratch you like a cat or dog.

A traditional wedding going on inside the Monkey Forest

Grooming party

Brave tourist

We sadly returned to our hotel and Winten picked us up at noon to take us to our next hotel and location – the Bali Mandira resort in Legian (south Bali). On the way, we stopped at a HUGE store where he said all the Balinese people shop. We saw much of the things you can find in the Ubud market – for a quarter of the price. We all got some bargains in a 30 minute shopping spree. (I felt like I was on that show where you throw stuff in your cart in a small amount of time). We had to be at the hotel in time for a couple of the girls to get 3 p.m. massages which we’d pre-arranged.

We made it in time and checked out our new digs. It was very gorgeous there – much like a 5 star resort in Hilton Head or the Bahamas. The pools were amazing and it was right on the beach. Our room had a little courtyard when you walked in with a stone bathtub where you could bathe under the stars. Then there were sliding glass doors to go into the room. On the other side of the room, we had a bathroom with an open-air waterfall shower which was just about the coolest thing ever (but not as cool as the open air bathroom we had in Ubud). The room itself was fairly standard but it had GREAT air conditioning and it was the first time we’d been truly cool since we arrived.