Second stop: Bali, Indonesia

Two days ago we arrived at our second stop: Bali, Indonesia and we have been exploring the surroundings of Ubud and getting a glimpse of the Balinese culture! We are staying in Ubud because of its location since it's in the center and you can do different trips to many other places.

Despite Ubud being turisty and a bit chaotic with the traffic jams in the center, the things that the city offers are really great! Locals are very welcoming and always smiling. Other tourists have told us that Ubud changed a lot in the last 30 years but even in the last 5 years with everything being with many more touristic activities. However, despite the traffic jam, our initial feeling was not of being so massified as soon as you go a little bit out of the main highlights, even if it's just a couple of 100 meters. We'll post a dedicated entry to Bali in a week once we will have left Bali but for now you can have a glimpse of how it is! The rice terraces of Ubud are just amazing! I've been in Vietnam before but the way these ones are built is spectacular, especially coming in September. Moreover, there is a way to enter free of charge and enjoy the tracking while doing donations to the local farmers. And despite some parts of it being too prepared for instagram, huge swings where you have to pay, swimming pools, etc. There are some parts that seem to be still authentic and some parts where these swings are just made by local farmers and you can just use them (such as the one you see in the photo below). Finally, drones are allowed which is pretty cool since Èric enjoys doing videos about that. You can check that on our youtube channel

Rice terraces close to Ubud in Bali

Èric enjoying the swing made by locals

Another think that is quite touristy but was much better than expected is the classical monkey forest. There are several hundred monkeys inside and they're just free and live just there. Many of them actually just go to the city of Ubud from time to time and mix with humans as you see in the pictures.

Monkey in the city in front of a shop in Ubud

Monkey drinking from a bottle of water that he stole secons ago from a tourist in front of us

Monkey eating in Ubud

Monkey giving milk to baby monkey

Monkey ready to ride! Let's call a grab

I know we put many pictures of the monkeys but it's just amazing to see how smart they are and how close they seem to be to humans. The picture of the monkey giving milk to the baby monkey was taken inside the monkey forest. And the one with the bottle of water as well. In fact, we saw how the monkey stole the bottle of water from a tourist, opened it and started drinking it right away!