ooh oo ooo UBUD, The other side of Bali.

Well from the sound of it I thought the beach was where it was at, as far as Bali goes.

The talk about the surf and beach life.

BUT: We booked a bus ticket to Ubud a town north of Kuta.

The bus ride was too short. I actually enjoyed riding around. We went from the crazy beach town to a still sort of hectic place where it was significantly more lush and green.

The hectic part was the narrow road leading to the town Ubud. Feels like it is supposed to be a one way road and sometimes it is a one way road with two way traffic.

This town sort of reminds me of Pai the small town north of Chiang Mai in Thailand.

The arts are BOOMING here. Every shop is all organic cotton, fabric and homemade jewelery or soaps. It is such a nice place to be. There are vegan and RAW FOOD items on the menus around here and it makes me feel at home.

One thing Kevin and I noticed, all the kids love to fly kites here. There are always kites flying so so high in the sky. We passed by a rice terrace and found some kids running around happily flying giant kites. Precious.

Yesterday we walked up and down the streets just looking at all the shops.

Today we motorbiked around all day.

We first checked out the Puri Lukisan Museum which had beautiful Balinese artwork.

Much of it looks polynesian, yet they are art pieces about Hindu stories or Indonesian folklore.

Later, we biked to the mountain and visited the green rice terraces of the town Tegalalang.

This place was a valley of rice terraces wrapping around mountains and nestled around tall simplistic palm trees. It was so picturesque, we circled around many times. We were able to stop and take photos of people working on the fields.

Later in the afternoon, we searched for the Botanical Gardens and it was another nice surprise.

The 50,000 Rupiah entrance fee per person was too much for us. The woman working there who probably overlooked the whole place; offered us the local price 60,000 rupiah for both of us. (approximately USD $6.50).... We found it hard to part from the Orchid house. Such a large variety of orchids, different colors, shapes, sizes and patterns. When we did finally leave the orchid house I had three mosquito bites and had to "deet up." We got lost in the labyrinth and wandered to the different designated areas in the botanical gardens.

Another fun spot was the Pitcher plants section. This is "an insectivorous" plant. It looks like a little pitcher and flies fall in and they are eaten by the plant! We had a hard time spotting these pitcher plants but once we did we found larger and larger ones.

We went to the edge of the gardens into the jungle and decided to turn around. The nice cement path turned to dirt, mud and messy terrain. Once we got our helmets for our motorbike ride back to our home stay, it started to rain, hard. We waited it out and drove through the light rain. This town is beautiful rain or shine and I can't wait for our full day tour tomorrow.