Yesterday we did another motorbike ride in and a round Ubud. It turns out our original sponsor for the Visa Extension is not eligible to be a sponsor. Again a picture heavy post is coming your way.

We have now learned that the ID card in Indonesia states your line of work. Our landlord had put up “temporary worker” or something like that, but that does not give you the right to be sponsoring tourist visas. You need to be an Employee, Business man/woman, Guru (teacher) or so forth. Luckily our Visa agent was quick to respond to us when the Immigration denied us our extension, and new papers are now in progress, as his daughter in law is a Business woman.

We have bought tickets to Perth today. We have tickets out on October 6th. We will take a night on Bali before the flight, after the 6 nights on the Eco-pirate-beach-box place out on Lembongan, http://www.lepirate-beachclub.com

After driving up and down the streets of Ubud to handle the papers for the Visa, we took a trip out of the city. We rode up to the rice terraces in the north of town. Quite a view, as the pictures show. We also found out that Katja will not be driving for a while. She did try out on her own, it supposedly ended I a broken headlight on the scooter and a heavy dent in the door of a car. Several people came running to, and all were interested in Katja’s well being. Nobody knew who the car belonged to and asked her to carry on driving. “This stuff happens in Bali all the time”. The landlord is quite calm about it and the price tag came to 759.000,- IDR. Or about 80$. So I guess I’m driving until further notice.

Acro yoga Saturday was quite cool and we met a nice American couple there. They have been traveling for the better part of two years and are looking at four years if they can make it happen. It’s nice to get some tips from where they have already been, like Malaysia. Adam was a bit bigger than me, but we still made each other fly. We did a nice jam outside afterward and got good tips for how Katja and I can train to progress. The picture show Eric and Dina + the girl on top whom we don’t know the name of. Maybe we can get there at one point? It’s always good to set goals, right?

We also registered for the Mandirigma camp In Thailand in April. Harder, Better, Stronger! We look forward to meeting and training with Johan, Heikki and others there. It matches pretty good our traveling route, as we expect to have spent 4-5 weeks in Thailand at this point. Hopefully we’ll meet up with several old friends, and make some new ones. Oh, and Katja is registered as overall participant nr. 100. She is very happy about that.

And we got caught by surprise as the PC started ringing Saturday night. We were watching a movie and suddenly the Skype sound started. Behold! It was Torild, Katja’s mom, who called. That was a nice surprise, as we honestly thought Ole Jakob needed to be present for that to happen. A big congrats to Torild for handling this on her own. I’m impressed.

As we explore the local food scene here in Ubud we stopped by a roadside BBQ the other day. It does not get more local than this. As the picture show, it’s a sort of a tent, dad and son BBQ some pork, mamma-San serves to the locals with rice and spicy sauce. We passed by, was hungry and asked to borrow a plank to sit on. The food was great, but I think we paid tourist price; 5$ for food and some water. Still, the experience was good and the looks we got from the other tourist passing us by was priceless.

Sunday morning we walked North of town for a rice field trek before breakfast. Or as would turn out, before and after breakfast. We went up past the palace and kept walking north. We were supposed to find a path into the rice fields further up, and be able to walk in them all the way back down towards the center if town.
We ended up eating breakfast at a great cafe overlooking rice terraces and palms. Paulas rice terrace cafe, Jalan Suweti. The best bacon I’ve had in ages, together with fried eggs and unbelievably good toast. A breakfast for champions when you add freshly squeezed orange juice and a cafe latte.
We went further north and found the house Julia Roberts’ character lived in during the movie “Eat, Pray, Love”. I guess it’s big thing for some people, but it’s a house for rent – like so many others around here.

This part of ‘town’ is really beautiful. We talked about staying up here on our next visit to Ubud. Being out if the center, with green views any which way you turn is inviting. Renting a motorbike for the stay would ensure that any place in the wider area is easily accessible. As this is written Katja has an emergency restroom visit at a home stay by the road. (I write a lot of this posts on my phone during the day.) We will get prices for this place and compare them to what we pay down in the center. I guess there is a lot to save on lodging by going up here.
And upon exiting the home stay Katja brings out an Australian man and a girl from India. Quite normal, eh? He takes us over to the eat,pray, love house and we take some pictures there. I can not honestly say I remember much of the movie, but the pictures we took shows the great location of the house.

We even got guiding on where to go to experience the true rice field view. The pictures below don’t do justice for such an amazing green view, but we post them anyway.

Katja has made enormous progress when it comes to head stands and hand stands. No wonder she needed a good picture taken in the rice fields.

Me on the other hand are still trying do understand the concept.

After we came out of the fields we followed some back roads down toward Ubud. There is a lot to see around here, and here are a couple of shots from the way down towards the center:

The trek that was supposed to last 1,5 hours ended in us spending 5,5 hours on “the road”.

From there on we just had time for a quick dip in the pool before going to Acro yoga. This was one of the best classes as we did a lot of different flying poses. I worked with Rupert again, which is always great and an American named Michael. Michael was new to Acro but was in good shape and came out doing a lot if stuff. Katja worked with Manuela and Charlene and they had a blast. All three have been doing Acro (Charlene for 8 months or so), so they made good form and poses.

For dinner we went to a new warung that we got recommendation of our landlady. I guess that proves the prices right and as this is written we are waiting for the food to arrive.

So finally, here we are lying in bed. Tired after a long day, a bit sun burnt and packed once again. We’re moving again tomorrow back to the previous hotel. We got a good price as returning residents and could not pass that up. Last move before leaving Ubud.
So good night and sleep well, wherever you are. 🙂