So my trek around Bali comes to an end.
Left Lovina and headed to Ubud, stopped at a few places along the way just to refresh old memories. Used a driver for this part of the trip, makes it easier to stop where you want when you want, can't do that with Perama.
Arrived in Ubud in the middle of the afternoon and checked into Prashanti Villas, now this requires some effort on my part, Prashanti is located about 300 meters along one of the walking paths through the rice fields. The accommodation was a Javanese style teak wood building, great views down the gorge when all the windows were opened up. Very quiet and peaceful area but only a short walk to Jl Raya Ubud.
Visited Blanco art museum and a few of the local artists galleries.
After two days I moved on to Desa Bresela, stayed at a place called Uma Nandhi Ubud Natural Cottage, this place was the highlight of my whole trek around Bali.
No pool, no TV, no bars and no restaurants, just village life, had a great time walking through the rice paddies enjoying the local scenery, from the school kids to the oldest of Ibu's everyone had a warm greeting and smile.
The fact that there are no restaurants available made no difference, Philip and Mai who own and run the cottages are very capable cooks and the meals they prepared for me were delicious, Philip does a shopping run into Ubud as required to get supplies and you are welcome to accompany him if you need to stock up on anything.
Spent my last night in Kuta, I know, but was leaving on the 9am AA flight so wanted to be closer to the airport. Stayed at Jullie Beach Inn. Nothing changed in Kuta, still full on offers of Bali woman, viagra,ect. Forking disgusting behaviour IMO.
CONCLUSION, although I normally visit Bali a couple of times a year I decided to do this trip for old times sake, I did a similar trip some twenty years ago in my mid forties and even now at 67 I still enjoyed doing it all again. A lot has changed over the years, the roads are a lot better and you can get to most places using just one bus, before it was multiple local bemos. A lot of development going on, just hope it doesn't encroach too much on the environment, already too much rubbish everywhere.
That's the end of my trip, off to K-Mart now to buy some new socks.