Rachel came by after breakfast and we went out for a wander looking in some of the funky shops and also stopping off for a few coffees and drinks along the way. First of all we went to Tutmak Coffee Shop where Rach had breakfast and I had a couple of iced coffees and a lemongrass and ginger drink and Kiran had....a very long nap on the comfy cushions.
We then wandered past Hibiscus Bar which isn't a bar anymore and is actually a cushion shop
If your image of Ubud streets is purely based on Eat Pray Love, you'll be amazed at how much more chaotic everything is - there are *loads* of motorbikes everywhere, loads of offerings all over the place including the floor, random dogs and lots of people offering Taxis and in a way that makes it sound dirty "Nice massage very good price". Here is a typical picture of the street
I like the chaos and the noise and the random blend of smells - rubbish and litter, incense, spicy cooking, a different blend of incense, and the general smell of tropical vegetation.
There is loads of art everywhere in Ubud which is really interesting to look at - here is Rachel outside an art shop along with some slightly more random examples! She's also wearing a slightly different baby carrier - Kiran seemed very comfortable and did quite a lot of sleeping whilst we were walking around.
We walked around a few more shops including a very plush shop with awesome, but very expensive children's clothes - it had some bird boxes outside.
Then it was off to Bar Luna for lunch which had some comfy cushions which helpfully were transformed into a soft baby prison for Kiran to stop him crawling off and falling onto the floor!
And of course we needed dessert so we stopped for some very reasonable sorbet at an icecream shop about £1 per scoop. Rachel (and Kiran!) had passionfruit sorbet and I had lime sorbet.
We walked back in a circuit and past BAWA which is a sort of RSPCA equivalent. Rachel adopted her cat Queenie from them, but she told me a rather worrying story where she reported a dog that had lots of puppies, and then another litter and they came to take photos of it and then instead of taking it away, came back and dropped off some more puppies for it to be a surrogate mother to!
We then walked past Monkey Forest and saw a couple that had "escaped" (Rachel is a bit immune to them as she sees them a lot - they probably seem a bit like squirrels to her!)
After all the walking around we were all hot and bothered so decided to go back to the hotel to cool off with a dip in the pool. It was also a chance to give Kiran his first swimming lesson! Maya apparently howled the first time she was in a swimming pool, but Kiran loved it! He splashed around, smiling and laughing and even splashed other people in the pool!
So Rachel then was picked up about 4.30pm and I went for a nap and then headed back to Bar Luna for dinner - apparently it's supposed to be a fairly social place for travelers but at the moment, I'm the only one here and have been since the 4 people telling stories of getting drunk in Bankok and dropped off at a police station by a taxi driver left about 30 mins ago...I have to say though, I am enjoying my own company for a change and it's nice to be able to slow down and enjoy just doing very simple things like eating and drinking - slowly.... Bar Luna is famous for "literary" stuff and they do readings etc and so their menu is peppered with references to literature and so it's only right that for my dinner I had a "Graham Greene Salad" (I didn't even eat the bread - I'd be a rake if I lived here permanently!
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