Travelled with Garuda from Melbourne in BC. Impressed by level of service and comfort for cost of fare. On home trip BC cabin only had a few passengers and imagine recent steep price hike is the reason.
Chaos at airport worst I have experienced in four trips over 10 years. Seemed that three planes landed and only four desks manned. We were towards the front of queue but still took 45 minutes to get through. We were grateful to find our driver waiting and off to Ubud.
Stayed at Alam Jiwa, one of three small hotels in Nyuhkuning run by the Café Wayan family . It is not hard to see why these hotels have earned such a stellar reputation . Alam Jiwa is a small oasis of peace and calm with helpful staff, comfortable rooms and views over the rice paddies. We prefer these small three star family hotels to five star hotels. Our room Garuda had a comfortable terrace with a day bed and a huge bathroom. The village was involved in constructing a bridge across a small river which was an amazing exercise , involving people of all ages including hotel staff. Laughter and song seemed to make the task of hand mixing and laying concrete seems less of a hassle.
We are on older couple with some mobility problems but transport was always available in an around Ubud. Days were full of doing as little as possible reading, sleeping and enjoying the pool. Enjoyed many of our favourite eating places including Nomads, Café Wayan, Casa Luna, Three Monkeys and Ibu Rai. All served a range of Indo and Western food for reasonable prices . Average cost of meal for two including beer around 200 to 300 K ( $25 to $40 AUD)Spent a ridiculous amount on lunch at the Four Seasons one day but the setting and view made it worth the money ( almost)
The Alam Group has its own Spa attached to Alam Shanti and we enjoyed the treatments there including massage, facials and manicures.
Two special treats were a visit the Women's Cecak dance. This is usually performed by men and the Ubud women's versions including wonderful singing. We were also gusts at the graduation day at the school run by the Hati foundation. The pupils are a mix of fee paying and scholarship students and watched by proud parents ,every class performed either modern or traditional dances and singing and tears were shed by many of the graduating class.
Ubud is still my favourite but was taken aback by the growth even in two years. No longer a quiet little town as cars, trucks and even tour buses cause traffic chaos. Let's hope that the community can exercise some control over planning so that the town and the culture can survive despite the tourism