Our last morning in Sanur, another banana pancake for breakfast, and we just had to wait for the car to arrive; I’d arranged a car to pick us up and take us to our next guest house the day before over email, which was just as well as there was a power cut in Sanur so we had no aircon or Internet. We sat and waited by the pool while the staff seemed to be building a patio; lots of tiny buckets of concrete being brought to and fro, almost spilling on us! Fortunately the driver did show up on time and drove us to Ubud. It took about an hour as the traffic was appalling.

But finally… 6 years after I first said to my mum that she’d love Ubud and that she needed to go one day, she was finally here with me! We stayed at Loris Homestay, and the family were so nice; English level was basic but still better than our Indonesian. We we shown to our suite, one of 4, which was upstairs with a nice balcony, a massive room with twin beds, and strong aircon.

Once we’d dropped off our stuff, we went into Ubud to have a look around a bit. Stopped off at a little place just off Jalan Monkey Forest for mum’s first experience of Indonesian food – we had nasi goreng, chicken satay, and green beans with peanut. And of course the pre-requisite beer to accompany 😉 The temperature here was very pleasant; there was no aircon but we didn’t need it, definitely not after Japan!

It was lovely being able to walk up and down the road; traffic is obviously quite crazy and motorbikes absolutely everywhere, parked on the road and the pavement, appearing round corners, weaving around pedestrians and cars, but yet despite the apparent chaos, there is definitely some underlying order as no one was run over that we saw!

After a gentle relaxing day of wandering around, we went for some food, to a restaurant just opposite our accommodation, called Hujan Locale. It turned out to be mum’s new favourite restaurant! We had a delicious margarita with tamarind jam, nutmeg and herbs, and then I had beef rendang for my hit of classic Indonesian food. Mum had a beef stir fry which she ate very quickly so I presume she enjoyed it! We had got a papaya salad to share but we really didn’t need it, as the portions were so generous.

After a great day, we headed back for an early night 😁