Travelled up to Ubud on 5th day, first stop to the elephant park. The opinion of all 7 of us is that this is not to be missed, excellent day out, got to ride on the elephants, 30 - 45 minutes and then got to know the elephants a little more afterwards, patting them, watching them frolicking in the water and generally getting up close and personal with them all, they were all very people friendly and the elephants seems to love being around people. We were there for hours and still wished we had had more time. Had lunch in the restaurant, which we though was reasonably priced. The total cost for the elephant park was a bit pricey but we all agreed that we will probably spend a day there again on our next trip in possibly a year or so.
We then headed to our accommodation in Ubud which was Klub Kokos. I had booked and paid for this over the internet which worked our quite well even though our driver had checked and double checked with Klub Kokos beforehand as to where it was located, was given the wrong instructions so took quite some time to locate its whereabouts. The last 1 km or so (takes about 20 minutes just to drive along this road) is the worst road I have ever had the misfortune of travelling on. The accommodation itself was quite pleasant and clean but we had dreadful problems with ants and screaming cats. We were all kept awake the 2 nights with cats screaming and scratching and on one night we all woke with ants in our beds, shocking experience.....
First night there we ate in and all found the food to be quite bland and communication was quite a problem with those running the place, go a couple of the orders completely wrong, very nice people though.
We went for quite a long walk the next day to the right of KK and saw some beautiful scenery and met some locals on the way selling coconuts and coffee and this was the real bali that we had never seen before. The people actually lived on the side of the mountain in tiny thatched roof shacks with no amenities at all. Once we got the civilisation we caught a taxi to the money forest which we had visited many times before and will no doubt visit again. This was the first time we did not have a guide with us and were told as long as we didn't have any food we would be fine as was the case. A couple of times the monkey's came close but we never felt threatened at all. We had lunch at the tree house cafe behind the clothes stalls in the monkey forest which was something quite different and is really a treehouse. Monkey's were hanging around but at a safe distance and we actually felt like we were in a jungle. Another enjoyable day out. That night we had organised transport through the reception and were told 20,000rp to the restaurant and 20,000 back to our accommodation. Simple enough we thought, even had it written down for us because of the communication problem. Driver took us to Bebek Bengil Dirty Duck restaurant, which was absolutely magnificent, and I highly recommend, beautiful surroundings being rice fields, excellent food. (There is a dirty duck 1 apparently not nearly as nice). We got driven back to KK (same driver of course as arranged) and got money out to pay and he wanted 150,000rp because of the wear and tear on his vehicle on the rough bit of road (his home is just to the side of this road so he would drive along it to get anywhere). We ended up having a heated arguement with the driver, more about the honesty and principles than the money. It was resolved by the receptionist who happened to hear the end of the arguement. The receptionist was most embarrassed by it all and he couldn't understand how it all went wrong. Because of the location and problems with ants and cats at KK I don't think we will ever stay there again.................... to be cont'd