4 days in Ubud: outdoor adventures and vegan food.

We are finishing our 4 days stay in Ubud and it has been a lot of fun! The area is tropical, lush, full of culture, local life, rice fields, vegan restaurants, narrow streets, and tons of tourists! Fortunately, we stayed in the less touristic area so it’s very quiet and peaceful. Although this is our fourth trip to Bali, third time in Ubud, we got to do all new things and wondered why we didn’t do them before as they are so much fun!

Day 1: I started the day with a nice 9 miles run by the kuta beach, my last run in Bali. Then the girls took their last surfing lesson before we drove up to Ubud.

somehow, I was exhausted after my run and took a while to recover from the exhaustion. I blamed it to PMS. When I did recover, I went to get a coffee while watching the girls surf. Such a nice spot and coffee, daddy stayed at the villa to pack up.

the drive from Kuta to Ubud was a bit over an hour. Before we went to our villa, we stopped a Mana Kitchen, half mile away from our villa, for lunch. It’s an organic sustainable farm to table type of place. Everything was fresh and delicious.

The girls had the smoothie bowls, I had a pumpkin salad and a tofu dish

we arrived at our Villa and immediately fell in love with the vibe. This is the living/dining room with kitchen, which is separate from the two bedrooms.

full equipped kitchen

girls’ bedroom

the little pool facing a rice field

our bedroom

stunning bathroom

outdoor bathtub

we chill for the rest of the day enjoying our new villa.

Day 2: we got up ready for the adventure, ATV + rafting! First time to both, excited, scared a bit, but mostly excited to try them.

we got our helmets and boots and ready to go! It took me a while to get used to manage the speed to go up and down and turns. Daddy took longer to get used to so Lizzy was screaming which was a lot of fun!

after 30 min we stopped for water and photos and continued for another 30-40 min in the jungle with adrenaline running through us. Our guide was taking us videos and helped us to maneuver when we got stuck so we felt safe all the time.

After a short ride we arrived at our rafting spot. Got the paddles and life jackets, ready to go!

we had to go down a lot of steps to get to the Agung River. After a short briefing of cues from our guide, we got ready! The waves were big and small, but we never felt unsafe. Lizzy was screaming again all the way, mostly out of fun this time and we all laughed so much. The river was 10km long surrounded by tropical trees and plantation. The view was gorgeous! It felt surreal to be rafting in that movie-like place! We kept wondering why we never did it in previous trips!

after almost 2 hrs of rafting, we had to climb up, surrounded by rice fields.

Then we had lunch provided by the tour company. It was 2:30pm when we finished, and we decided to continue. Lizzy and daddy went to Monkey Forest, Sofia and I walked around the center with many shops to explore. We didn’t find anything interested but enjoyed the frozen yogurt stop. The center was so busy with tourists that I felt very overwhelmed and glad that our villa seemed like a sanctuary.

Day 3: Girls and I left the villa at 7am to do the famous campuhan ridge walk.

The path is lush and scenic, known for its mellow hiking trails & sweeping hilltop views. The girls didn’t enjoy it as much as I did but they were determined to get to the breakfast spot, Karsa cafe. The view was nice.

Sofia enjoyed her banana pancake

fried tempeh with veggies and toast for me

we got back to the villa almost 10am. Lizzy played with daddy in the pool for a while to cool down.

Around 11:30am we walked to a ceramic shop, then we continued to find lunch spot. The closest vegan restaurant was just 10 min away, so we went. It’s called Moksa, a vegan and raw food restaurant. It is incredible how many vegan places Ubud has, much more than Kuta/Seminyak. Not only there are so many, the quality of vegan food is also superior. The girls got smoothie bowls

daddy and I shared the kimchi roll

vegan taco which girls tried and ordered more

moksa sampler that had all raw food. The quality of the food was incredible! Like Michelin type of high-end vegan food. I didn’t even to find it, it seems they are all around the corner in Ubud.

I wanted to have a massage in a nice spa so I booked one near the center. The rest of the family went back to the villa and I decided to walk to the spa. The path went through narrow path, passing through local houses, villas.

It was a great way to really get to know what Ubud is like. So peaceful and beautiful.

The massage was okay, the aloe scrub left me cold. I took a motorcycle to go back to the villa, and then went with the family to Mana Kitchen again for dinner.

Day 4: Our original plan was to visit old village, waterfalls and temples. But since we’ve seen many in Sumba already, and it seems that we enjoy active touring, we decided to do a cycling tour instead. It is something that I used to do when traveling to new places but haven’t done it for a while as the girls were small. Now it’s the perfect time.

I enjoy our villa in the morning to see the sunrise, listening to the birds

We were picked up by the greenbike guide, then we drove to the restaurant for light breakfast, meet with one other couple in our group, then another 30 min drive to the start. We were going to take one bike each but after few minutes we realized that Lizzy wouldn’t be able to bike alone as the path is narrow, mostly on the road with cars/motorcycles, and through rice fields. So, one of the guides took her on the back trailer where she could pretend to bike. 🙂

We were on the countryside of Ubud, no tourist presence except other biking tour, which was lovely as this is such a contrast to the busy Ubud center. We could see rice farmers working, other villagers carrying their daily life, walking on the road, carrying things in their heads. We stopped for coffee and snack, at a local house, at a temple, and at rice fields

daddy showed the girls where rice comes from

We ended the bike tour at 3:30pm. We decided to walk back from the center as the traffic was heavy. We also wanted to go back to the two places we went yesterday to check if Sofia could find the lost sunglass there. Ubud is quite hilly so it was fun to walk

We found the sunglass at the ceramic store and got back to the villa past 5pm.

Ubud is wonderland for outdoor lovers! I feel like there are so many more things we could do, like visiting those amazing waterfalls, trekking to see Mount Batur sunrise, visit hot spring, and so much more! Definitely will come back!