2025 Bali – Ubud
4th January 2025
We arrived for our flight to Bali three hours early and as Singapore airport had the reputation of being one of the best in the world, we added an extra hour to take a look around. The airport itself was pretty ordinary but there was an area attached to the international terminal called Jewel where we intended to spend time, but it was closed for maintenance. We were able to look at it from a distance and we could see how impressive it would have been with water falling from the roof to the floor but with it being closed it just looked sad.
We got through check-in quickly, so we weren’t happy to discover that apart from being there four hours early, our flight was delayed for eight hours. They announced that people on our flight had to go to transfer desk D. We had no idea what for but found a big queue there. There was no mention of our flight at that desk and a sign informed us to go to Transfer Desk C which was at the other end of the big airport. When we got there it was closed and had a notice saving we had to go back to Desk D. After a long wait they gave us £50 worth of vouchers to spend on food because of the delay. It wasn’t until we tried to spend them that we discovered they were only valid in the cheap fast-food section where it was impossible to spend more than £20 and the food was terrible. With such a long wait I would have been happy to pay to sit in a lounge but the only one that allowed non-members had air conditioning so cold that it was impossible to sit in there and they didn’t provide blankets. No wonder it was empty.
In the departure lounge, we asked what had caused the delay and all they would say was it was for “operational reasons” which of course could mean anything. They handed out forms to prove to insurance companies that there was a long delay. I had purchased insurance from the airline (Scoot Airlines) which meant we would get $150 compensation. Later when I tried to make a claim, they rejected it saying, “We do not pay out if the delay was for operational reasons.” In the past, I always have fought these outrageous rip-offs, but I just didn’t have the energy any more. When we finally took off, the plane was freezing and when I asked the stewardess for a blanket, she said they only had them for sale. I don’t think we will be flying Scoot Airlines again.
I had been anxious about the drug laws in Bali which seemed even stricter than in Singapore. It was all very vague, but the general advice was not to take any prescription drugs through customs unless we had all sorts of proof that they were prescribed. Apart from diazepam it also included anti-depressants and Federika’s anti-biotics. We did have all the documents required but again we just sailed through customs and all I saw was a notice saying that Heroin and Cocaine were not allowed.
We arrived at the Kano Sari Ubud Villas hotel at 2.00 a.m. and were shown to a lovely private villa. There was a large four-poster bed with a mosquito net which covered the whole area so it was not claustrophobic like some mosquito nets. As I lay on the bed preparing myself for sleep I was surprised at how noisy it was outside, There was a river running just below us and lots of wildlife which I loved but wasn’t used to, so I had to put earplugs in. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before Federika discovered she had food poisoning from something she had eaten at Singapore Airport. Having grown up in Peru, she rarely got stomach upsets, but this was a particularly bad one. I can sleep through anything so I didn’t know what was going on until the morning. I did wake up during the night with a shock when I heard a tremendous noise outside which turned out to be torrential rain but I soon got back to sleep.
I didn’t wake up until lunchtime and Federika was feeling so bad she stayed in bed and slept all day. I took a short walk but the hotel was in a quiet street outside town so I only found one place to eat lunch which wasn’t great. With Federika only wanting to sleep, it gave me a chance to relax and recover from the journey. Mentally, I was still feeling fragile so I did some meditation and started reading a great book called The Bee Sting. The hotel was fabulous and the staff couldn’t do enough for us. We were not overlooked and opposite our long balcony was a stream and small forest.
On the second day, Federika still felt rough but wanted to take a walk into town as there was nothing she hated more than staying indoors all day. One of the staff drove us into town and we started at the Ubud Palace which was pretty modest but it was the main venue for traditional dancing. We had a stroll around the shops and were surprised that considering it was the off-season how busy it was.
We had lunch and Federika managed to eat some plain rice and chicken as it was important to get something into her stomach. I had duck in some fancy sauce which was excellent although a little heavy so I couldn’t eat anything for the rest of the day. My brother is always complaining that I don’t write enough (or anything) about the food in the places we visit but as international food is available in most countries these days I find it difficult to find anything interesting to write about. Although Balinese and Singaporean food had some exotic names, it was often just variations of noodles and rice. In Singapore, we had chicken satay in a good restaurant but I had tasted better in Brighton. The best Pad Thai I ever had was not in Thailand but in Mumbai. The best Thai food I ever had was in Los Angeles, This was the second year running that Federika got food poisoning so we were both nervous about ordering prawns or pork. Most restaurants offered an extensive Western menu which we usually avoided but there was only a certain amount of curry or noodles we could eat before craving a change. That’s not to say we didn’t occasionally find something special but it was often in the least likely places.
After lunch, Federika was very tired and still not feeling great so we headed back to the hotel but it wasn’t long before it started to rain. We sheltered for a while but the longer we waited, the harder it rained so we had to keep walking. Dozens of locals appeared from nowhere selling umbrellas, so Federika bought one that cost five times its worth and I had brought one with me. In the beginning, we walked carefully trying to avoid the worst of the rain and stepped in between puddles but in most places the pavements were non-existent and soon the roads turned into fast-flowing rivers. We abandoned any hope of keeping our shoes dry and walked ankle-deep in the water. At one point the water was gushing down a big hole in the pavement that anyone not paying attention could easily have fallen down and found themselves washed out to sea. By the time we got to our room, it was like we had just got out of a swimming pool fully clothed.
During lunch, Federika said she wanted the cancel the trip to Perth as she was finding all the travel and changing hotels too much. I completely agreed and although it had seemed a good idea to include Perth in our travels, neither of us had any great desire to go to Australia. We had booked with Air Aisa and although I was expecting to have to pay a penalty for cancelling the flight, I was expecting that they had made it impossible to cancel it or speak to anyone. I was directed to a chatbot that claimed to be “Artistically intelligent” which I suppose was true if you compare it to a box of frogs. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get through to a human so had to give up.
During lunch, Federika said she wanted the cancel the trip to Perth as she was finding all the travel and changing hotels too much. I completely agreed and although it had seemed a good idea to include Perth in our travels, neither of us had any great desire to go to Australia. We had booked with Air Aisa and although I was expecting to have to pay a penalty for cancelling the flight, I was expecting that they had made it impossible to cancel it or speak to anyone. I was directed to a chatbot that claimed to be “Artificial intelligent” which was true when compared to a box of frogs. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get through to a human so had to give up.
If businesses can use chatbots to take over their legal responsibilities, why can’t we do the same as consumers? When a business contacts me, I would like to direct them to my website where they would be greeted as follows:
Chatbot: “Hello. My name is Cyril. I am so clever that people are concerned I will take over the world one day. How Can I help you?”
Business: “You have a debt of £500 that we urgently need you to clear.”
Chatbot: “I’m sorry but I don’t understand that question. Please select the option that your enquiry relates to:”
Extinct Handbags
Toothless Pterodactyls
Left Handed Tennis Racquets
One-Legged Wrestlers
Business: “None of those options.”
Chatbot: “I’m sorry but I don’t understand your answer. Please select the option that your enquiry relates to:” Etc Etc.
Business: “I want to speak to a human”
Chatbot: “Sure. Click the link below and I’ll be happy to help. Your enquiry is important to me”
The business Clicks on the Link and is taken to my website.
Chatbot: “Hello. My name is Cyril. I am so clever that people are concerned I will take over the world one day. How Can I help you?”
This scenario happens regularly to me so it is about time we turned the tables.
The weather forecast for the next week was more of the same so we were happy that we had booked only five days in Bali. I booked a flight to Bangkok and we would spend the rest of the holiday in Thailand. We still had a good hotel booked in Phuket so we had to find somewhere to stay the other 14 days. Being late notice, the number of hotels available was limited so we spent many hours looking but eventually settled on six days in a Sofitel Hotel near Krabi and from there we would have to start looking again for our next stay.
Next morning we woke to bright sunshine so we had a pleasant walk to town. It was not forecast to rain until 2 pm but at midday, it started to pour down while we were walking around the outdoor market. Federika was feeling a little better so we had lunch while it was raining and although it did stop, it was still very gloomy. It was the unpredictability of the weather that we didn’t like so we went and spent the rest of the day at our hotel.
On our last day went on a private tour which started at The Tegalalang Rice Terrace. The hotel booked us a very good tour guide who showed us around the cascading rice fields which were built on slopes, complete with lots of places to have romantic photos taken. In one place you could pay extra to sit on a long swing that stretched over a sheer drop but people were strapped so they were safe. Thankfully we were too old to be allowed to do it so any temptation we might have had was taken out of our hands. There was a zip line going from one side of the valley to the other which looked great fun and for the first time, I saw what looked like a bike on the line so people could cycle across. Maybe not as much fun but certainly a good video to show off to friends. It was a very enjoyable morning.
We had intended to go to the Monkey Forest but were put off by all the warnings. They warned that you shouldn’t wear glasses or take out your mobile phones as the monkeys went for anything shiny. We read countless posts of tourists who had been bitten or scratched by monkeys and as we had been to plenty of places to see harmless monkeys, we gave it a miss. In South Africa, it was forbidden to feed the baboons and there were signs up everywhere saying “To feed a baboon is to give it a death sentence.” When a baboon got used to being fed by humans, they were more likely to approach them and demand food and if one is known to be dangerous, the rangers have no option but to shoot it. In the Ubud Monkey Forest, there were so many tourists that the monkeys always managed to find food amongst them. The main fear was rabies and although it was highly unlikely to catch rabies from a monkey, when the tourists got home and went to hospitals, they were told to have rabies jabs just to be on the safe side.
So instead of the monkeys, we went to a place where they produce Kopi Luwak coffee which is claimed to be the most expensive in the world. A guide showed us around and started at a cage where small cats called Luwaks were fed exclusively with coffee beans. It was not possible to put two of them in the same cage together because they would start fighting so it meant the poor animals spent their whole lives caged in solitary confinement.
The beans went in one end of the cat and came out the other end, encased in some kind of shell. Someone came along and collected them, took the shells off, roasted them and packaged them so people were literally buying and drinking expensive bags of shit. At the end of the tour, we stopped for lunch in their café and Federika ordered a Luwak coffee which was weak, with a slight hint of dishwater. While we were sitting in the café, the heavens opened and it started pouring with rain with the odd dash of lightning. We waited a while until it eased up a bit but we still got soaked getting to the car. It continued to pour down until we got to the hotel when it lightened up a bit. The weather forecast was useless as to be on the safe side, they forecast rain all day, every day. If it was just once a day or short showers it would have been ok but it was just so unpredictable.
I was surprised by how run-down the streets in Ubud were, and I was constantly tripping up on the uneven or missing paving slabs. When it rained, the holes filled with water so we had to constantly jump over them. I wondered what they did with the fortune they made from tourism.
That evening we went to the Ubud Palace to watch the Legong Dance Show. We arrived 15 minutes before the start and found that all the chairs and even floor spaces had been taken. We managed to find the edge of a low wall where Federika sat and I made do with the corner so half my bum was on the wall and the other half in mid-air supported by my leg on the floor. What surprised me was the number of musicians there were. They were seated on each side of the dance floor and I counted 22. Most of them were xylophone-type instruments that were hit with what looked like a tack hammer. The music sounded great for a few seconds but then I found it quite monotonous although it was amusing to see a man at the end whose job was to hit something with a short wooden stick every now and then. I had never seen a musician looking so bored. 
A brightly dressed dancer appeared with very long false fingernails making elaborate movements with her hands. I enjoyed it for five minutes and was expecting to make a discreet exit halfway through the show when she was joined by another two dancers appearing to communicate with each other using hand gestures and funny faces, so it became more interesting. A weird-looking dragon appeared, followed by someone in a monkey costume who started to tease the dragon until it was eventually kicked into touch.
More dancers followed and then what I assumed were three pirates that went into a mime act that was highly entertaining and involved the rest of the cast. My criticism of a lot of these kinds of shows is that there was not enough variation. To the connoisseur, the differences between each dance would be pronounced, but to me, they all looked the same and the music was often in the same beat and key. In this case, the choreography was superb and we both thoroughly enjoyed the night, especially when 15 minutes before the end some people left early so I managed to get a seat.
2025 Singapore
