Ubud is a really beautiful artsy town, and is the cultural and artistic centre of bali where quite a few expat artists came to live and work, so there are loads of art galleries and museums everywhere. I got minibus with Helen and Pag [Am and Ulrika wanted to head straight for the Gili Islands], and we drove past loads of beautiful rice paddies and literally hundreds of handicraft shops and art stores with people painting outside and mini art warehouses with hundreds of buddhist/hindu/some form of religious statues outside. We stayed by the Ubud Monkey Forest Sanctuary so there were always cute little monkeys roaming around the pavements and climbing on roofs, and it was right in the centre of the town. The first day there we went to such a nice little restaurant that was really traditionally decorated with loads of balinese art on the walls where we just sat for hours, and in the evening we went to see a traditional balinese dance show at Ubud Palace which helen and pag massively hated because it was quite dull and samey and went on for an hour and a half so they kept leaning behind me and looking at each other and mouthing 'this is SHIT!' to each other.. We went for a wander around town after and discovered the biggest gem of our entire holiday: Cafe Wayan - a massive gorgeous open-air restaurant set behind a bakery in a kind of dark jungle-like setting with low tables spread in little alcoves lit by candles and with the MOST INCREDIBLE and diverse menu of all time. We went there for every single meal and every night we stayed until it shut which was at a non-specific time, basically whenever we decided to leave that was when they closed for the night.

The second day we arranged to see the volcano, Gunung Batur and some public baths, we made friends with Woody, an 8-yr old fisher and a gang of young Indonesian girls, and got hassled by children trying to sell us things on a bridge. The final day we rented bikes to try and explore more of Ubud because we definitely hadn't seen enough of everything on offer but it didn't really get us anywhere because mine and helen's bikes were shit and we had to walk them whenever we encountered any kind of uphill slope. And pag kept riding in front of us on his mountain bike and skidding really close to us like a moron going 'woah dude check out my skid!' and being such an attention seeker. Ubud is apparently the place to go for spiritual tourism so our aim for the day was to find and sample what a real yoga class on Bali would be like so with the help and hindrance of our bikes, we did a yoga lesson at the Yoga Barn. Pag was the only guy in the room and he absolutely loved it even though he was completely crap and made me and helen wait behind at the end because he wanted the yoga teacher to check out his headstand! Ubud has so much stuff to offer like botanical gardens, batik/ craft/ cookery courses, loads of amazing art museums, beautiful surrounding countryside etc. - but we ended up doing very little because we spent most of our time just hanging out together and enjoying each others company in a fantastically charming and relaxing town.