Day 2 - A full day in Ubud

I awoke (early bearing mind I’d gone to bed at 3am) to the sounds of birds and the scurrying of lizards over my bedroom walls. The air con was on full whack so had to do the “cold dance” whilst running round the room trying to find the remote.

I headed down to breakfast by the pool and had a lovely greeting by the staff. They sat me down and drew on a map places to go today but said that they would reserve me a sunbed by the pool for when my late arrival this morning got the better of me.

After breakfast I packed up (I’m moving rooms tonight to be with my roommate for the trip who I haven’t met yet) and headed off to walk to the Monkey Forest.

My god...... I think I’m melting... already!

Arrived at the monkey forest already glad to be under canopy for a while. Aimlessly wandering down tiny little hill walks and through huge open canopies of trees with monkeys quite literally everywhere. None bothered me as I was sensible and didn’t engage with them and didn’t get too close with my camera to be of interest. Those that didn’t pay attention to the rules had monkeys climbing all over them, pulling their hair, breaking into backpacks and generally just running riot. There were guards about with slingshots in case things got a little out of hand!

This place really is quite something. After the monkey forest I decided to take an amble up one of the main roads in Ubud. Every shop has offerings of flowers and paper creations outside and there is a wonderful smell of incense floating about.

After having a sit down in a lovely little cafe and having a “yellow smoothy” I also treated myself to some grilled pineapple with coconut icecream. It was lovely!

I then took myself off into the main part of Ubud and walked to the Campuchian Ridge where we are doing a long walk tomorrow. I went up to the top to take a few photos and there was a lovely breeze. I didn’t want to go too far as I didn’t want to duplicate effort tomorrow so turned back and headed for the cottage.

The rest of the afternoon was spent snoring on a sunbed by the pool. No seriously, I woke myself up mid snore, clearly I’m exhausted!

At 6pm I went down to meet the rest of the group who all seem like a nice bunch. A couple from Belfast, a couple from Bristol, me, a lady from Munich, a girl from Switzerland, a mum and daughter from Montana and three ladies from Canada. We went out for a group meal afterwards and got to know one another a little better. I’m now just going through some photos and then it’ll be bed time!