July 12 -19th Loving life in Ubud and Bogged Down with Logistics

We have spent the last week just going to Ubud Fitness gym in the morning followed by a Yoga class in the afternoon or late morning, eating healthy and planning our trip to Papua. Our friend Helma came up to spend a long weekend with us which was wonderful. We took her to our favorite restaurants, including a blues night at Moko that we enjoyed, to our batik shirt maker at Bamboo Bali. I told the owner that I had bought a "cap" for batik but did not know how to use it. He promptly put on a video of the process of making batik with a cap complete with how to design the cap, making the cap and then stamping with the cap etc. I now have the family craft project for our Christmas gathering - batik napkins. We were at various yoga classes both at the Yoga Barn and also at Radiance Alive Studio. We also were hunting for the healthy raw dark chocolate that is made by two companies here in Bali. We actually did manage to find some chocolates from both companies to sample but stayed true to our "wedding prep diet" and only had a small piece.

Ubud is much more crowded than it was even two weeks ago when we were last here. We shuffled between three different hotels in this past week, Cendana Resort and Spa off monkey road, and then Artini 3 which is close to the Yoga barn and then Villa Puriartha also on Raya Pengosekan, the lower part of Hanoman street, and close to the Yoga barn. We have been in and out of at least 10 hotels/guest houses checking availability, rooms and prices for each move we make. Moves happen because the accommodation is only available for a few days and not the whole period of time we need a room, and we are in process of determining our departure arrangements for our next destination. The weather also has changed and we have had rain almost everyday. Back in April a pool was a necessity to cool off and this time we have not used the pools at all.

Planning for Papua has taking considerable time, as none of the tour operators shown in the 2010 Lonely Planet have responded, so we can only assume they are out of business. In doing Internet searches we came up with some other companies and also names of guides. The majority of the tourists going to the Baliem Valley are going to do some strenuous hiking with porters and cooks etc. We decided we are only going to do one night of that kind of adventure and have booked ourselves into the best hotel in the valley for all the other nights. The Baliem Palamo hotel advertises having Internet, but we had to call several times to get them to answer the email we sent. We are keeping our fingers crossed it has Internet as Jonathan's wedding paperwork has hit a road block in Cairo and with help of friends we are trying to get it back on track.

The prices for tours are very high so we have been organizing flights, hotels etc ourselves, because as a last resort we were just going to fly to Jayapura and go to the police station ourselves to apply for the travel permits. however one local guide from the Baliem valley has been located and we have been using email and our Indonesian cell phone to arrange everything.

There are still many more yoga classes to take in Ubud, a Balinese dance class, color theory class, and shops that have not been investigated. We have not been to all the evening dance performances and we will miss the big cremation ceremony on the 28th as we will fly from from Papua directly back to Jakarta. We did manage to see the Neka Art Museum in Ubud this trip.

In the afternoon of the 19th we took a taxi to Kuta, near the airport, and also the infamous beach for Australians. We stayed overnight there so that we are close to the airport as we have an early morning flight to Jayapura via Makassar.