June 24 - 29, 2012 R&R in Ubud

This is now our third trip to Ubud in 3 months and we still had things we hadn't seen or done.  With a wedding coming up in September we decided to avoid the gelato shop and instead be regulars at the Ubud Fitness Center and at the Yoga Barn.  These two places are at opposite ends of town but the Yoga Barn is down near Monkey Forrest so an interesting walk with all the shops en route. 

We went daily to Yoga and had a class in Intro to Yoga, Restorative Yoga and Yin Yang Yoga. We worked hard through an hour and a half session each time.  Once the Yin Yang teacher said "so happy to see you came back" - that was after our first session with her and we had positioned our selves in the front row never dreaming the place would fill up to 30 people! After that we were in the back so no one could see what we were doing or what we could not do, to be more exact! There is a wonderful healthy cafe with free wireless at the Barn, so we would have a meal after our class.

We also spent time at the Fitness Center, which required for us to be dropped off and picked up, as it is out of the way.  The Center had a daily rate which we did this visit but next time we will do a week's pass and work with a trainer.  The Center offers a 15 minute sports stretch massage by the trainers, which we did twice after work outs and were impressed with how good we felt afterwards.  The Center also has a healthy cafe, but just drinks, so we would have a banana peanut butter protein shake and a fresh wheat grass shot.

In the evenings we would still go out the X-Lounge (shisha place) as they make a good grilled tuna steak and fresh salad. While in April the Lounge was the only nearby place with decent live music, now that the "season" has started there are many places with good live music. The Yoga Barn has a restaurant called Kafe which we also really enjoyed.

The rates have gone up at the Cendana Resort and we are even having a hard time getting a room there for our next visit.  We have continued in our usual vein of leaving stuff at various locations.  We picked up our snorkling gear from our friend Helma at the InterCon and left a suitcase at the Cendana.  We can now carry all our gear ourselves.  That heavy Batik Cap and a shark's tooth have been left behind at the Cendana.