We were very lucky enough to go to Ubud, Bali again last week for four days. This was only six months after our last visit of the same length. My wife, Meredith and I hired motorbikes for the entire time and went riding, ate lots of local Bali Makan, and practiced our Bahasa. We even went to the northern areas, Lovina, Singaraja and specifically the only dedicated Buddhist temple on the island, Brahma Vihara Arama, for a day too.

I’ll write more about our adventures shortly (there are a few articles in the works…) however in the meantime, please enjoy this video (above) of one of our rides, this one taking us from Nyuh Kuning (south side of the Monkey Forest from Ubud central) through to Pasar Ubud (the Ubud Markets).

Thanks to the power of Google Maps, here is the route that the video takes you on.

View Nyuh Kuning to Pasar Ubud in a larger map

If you keep dreaming of visiting Bali, I recommend that you check out some of my other videos (please vote for them whilst you’re there!), and perhaps even check out some of the reviews I have given on TripAdvisor. Enjoy!

Recently, Meredith and I spent a few beautiful days in Bali, Indonesia. I did have all intention to write a mini travelogue and publish it here, but in the weeks we’ve been back, it’s been crazily busy at work and in life.

We arrived late Monday evening, sans children (who had Meredith’s mother staying with them). My brother Charlie happened to be in town, so along with his friend, Rani, they were kind enough to pick us up from Ngurah Rai Airport, and in the middle of the night, we made our way to Nyuh Kuning, a small and quiet village just south of Ubud town center.

Our chosen hotel, Saren Indah, is tucked away on the southern end of the Monkey Forest, near the top end of Jalan Nyuh Bulan.

Replete with beautiful gardens, an inviting swimming pool, outdoor Bale style restaurant (open 7.30am – 10.30pm), and two story buildings housing the sixteen rooms, the place was fantastic. Either side of the property were rice fields, and although we stayed in one of the Garden rooms (lower floor), we’re assuming the views from upstairs would be great.

We ate and shopped, practised our Bahasa, and rode our two hired motorbikes, for the next four days, before sadly heading back to the airport early Saturday morning for the trip home. If you are considering a few days of downtime, you couldn’t go wrong with booking one of the many cheap flights to Bali, and relaxing in Ubud for a few days.

I’ve uploaded two videos that I took from the handlebars of the bike, using a loaned GoPro camera, designed for the purpose. This video shows a quick ride around Nyuh Kuning, and this video shows our ride from Jalan Hanoman in Ubud, over to Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave).

Terima kasih (thank you) for reading this post; I trust you’ll enjoy the videos!

Image: Photo of the reception Bale at Saren Indah Hotel, Ubud.

It’s no secret that I enjoy going on journeys both across Australia and overseas. During the next two months, I am off to Wellington, New Zealand in February and then Bali, Indonesia in March.

I was speaking to a few people the other day, about what each of us do for planning. Here are the five main websites I use to discover the area I am visiting, before I get there.

Wikimapia
This is a great site, which is literally a wiki overlay to Google Maps. You can select areas and tag them and write short descriptions, and then others can explore a city or area from above. Here’s the Wellington, New Zealand wikimapia section.

Trip Advisor
This is a great review site, and a very active forums community as well. I’ve reviewed a few places on there in last 12 months, and even have my own travel map, showing where I have been (fairly limited, I know!). Here’s their Bali, Indonesia section as an example.

Flickr
This may sound like an odd choice, but you can find out a lot about a city by the photographs of it on this great photo sharing site. The easiest way to search is by keyword, such as ‘Wellington, New Zealand‘. You can see my photos here.

Wikitravel
This is another wiki-based website, with succinct articles about thousands of locations around the world. They tend to be written by people who have vast experience in the area, and I’ve used their recommendations on previous trips. Here is the Wikitravel page for Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.

Delicious
Social book-marking pioneer website, Delicious, is a great place to see hat others are bookmarking and tagging by the destination name. Here’s an example of people tagging websites with ‘Sanur‘, one of the places I am staying in Bali.

What sites do you use to research travel destinations before you leave?