Unsurprisingly, after a late night in Bangkok followed by an early morning flight, I've gotten behind on blog posts. We arrived at the Bali airport feeling terrible...tired, hungover, hungry. I had booked us an AirBnB homestay in Ubud with Ketut Mendra. If you have never used AirBnB I 100% recommend it. If you are ever coming to Bali I 100% recommend staying with Ketut and his family.
Ketut's first son, Wayan, picked us up. A little history on the Balinese naming system - they often name their kids one, two, three, etc. Ketut is four, and Wayan is....? You guessed it, one. Anyways, that means there are multiple people with the same name.
Despite the rough state that we were in, Katie and I couldn't help but be talkative and feel full of life when we met Wayan. He is so joyful, funny, and answered all of our questions about Balinese culture and island life. One thing that was tough - the driving and the roads! The roads are quite windy once you leave the city, and technically they drive on the opposite side of the road, except we realized that it's more of a "drive wherever if it works for you" type of driving. Literally, sometimes we'd have motorbikes coming straight at us.
Once we arrived in Ubud (Payogan is actually the little village where we are staying) we were shown to our room and were blown away by its beauty and the niceness of Ketut. Our room is the perfect little studio - marble floors, a small sink and fridge in one corner, a raised living/eating area with a beautifully carved coffee table and cushions for seating on the floor, two twin beds and more amazing furniture. The room is surrounded on three sides by windows, and a sliding wood and frosted glass door leads to our outdoor bathroom. We even have a front porch where we leave our shoes when we enter our room (as is customary in Bali when you enter inside a house, temple, or store). Ketut immediately realized we needed a nap so that's what we did. To give you an idea of just how special this family is, the minute our door closed Katie started to cry - the beauty of our room, of Bali, of Ketut and his family was simply overwhelming.
Post nap, we walked into town for some food! We didn't know what to expect of Balinese food and were pleasantly surprised. Fresh ginger iced tea, a salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and avocado, a very light coconut chicken curry, and Indonesian fried chicken (that was also light, somehow). The freshness of the food was amazing and we are sure this will be a nice change from the heavy (but delicious) Thai food.
The only way to fully describe Bali is magical. The Balinese people, the scenery, the way of life, the food - it is all so magical and indescribable.
