Bali : Ubud, Kintamani & Tegalalang Padi Field

Itinerary for Day 2: Ubud - Kintamani-Tegalalang Rice Field - Sengajaraja (North Bali)

For our convenience and enjoyable journey, i hired a private air-cond car with a professional tour guide to travel according to my own itinerary. We can skip all those unnecessary places that we are not interested.

The tour guide, Alex met us at Mercure Hotel Bali to start our itinerary of the day. Firstly, he took us to Ubud, the most popular art region to see it's people who have high art talent like Gold, silver in Celuk, well-known wood cavers in Mas, and painter in Batuan village.

UBUD :

We reached Ubud after 1 hr journey. For more than a century, Ubud has been the island’s preeminent centre for fine arts. First stop, we visited the ancient king palace of Puri Saren. The palace is designed based on Balinese architecture concept where it owns separate building with each function, for example, Barong, Gamelan Room, Bale Agung, Meeting Room, Family temple, Bale Gede and so on.

The luxury Entrance Gate (Candi Bentar) and dressy ancient house building are decorated by the fertile tropical garden. Pic above: Professional Tour guide, Alex. This is the second time i met him. He can speak fluent English and Japanese. This palace is an artistic cultural life center, while the traditional market is the symbol of local economics resident. The traditional art market is located in front of the palace and it is found by Ida Tjokorda Putu Kandel who has commanded from year 1800 - 1823.

We have a short walk in the art market. Market which is unfolding from west to easterly divided become two group with different purposes. The block at the west is for a traditional artistic market and the block located in the east as an everyday traditional fundamental market requirement. All the crafting sold in this place you can bring home as souvenir like slipper, wood idol, bag, clothes, matting, painting and a lot of more.

Any visitor to Bali will see signs on every road, emblazoned with the words “Babi Guling”. This is one of the island’s greatest culinary treasures.

A trip to Ubud is truly incomplete without a visit to Warung Ibu Oka which is famous for Babi guling (Suckling pig) just a stone throw away from Puri Saren and Art Market.

Ibu Oka is a small, slightly dingy open-air restaurant, and patroned by more than 500 visitors each days.

The pigs are cooked in the traditional style. They are marinated with Balinese spices and coconut oil. In addition, cassava leaves are tucked into the tummies with a rock or two to help hold internal heat. While the pig is slowly turning, a mix of coconut oil and turmeric is used to bathe the skin, adding a golden glow and a crispy finish.The family has been making babi guling for almost 60 years across two generations. Ibu Oka prepare 5-6 pigs daily. In order to prepare the pigs for service by 11am, Ibu Oka’s team has to start work as early as 4 am.Tasting the legend that is Ibu Oka’s babi guling will cost you around Rp 20,000, which includes roast suckling pig and the crackling, blood sausages, Balinese vegetables and rice.

Two of us paid Rps 58,000 for the suckling pig lunch. A small price to pay for this simple and delicious pleasure.

Kintamani Active Volcano:

Kintamani is a name of countryside located in the hill and the beautiful panorama surround it. We can see beautiful panorama from Kintamani to overview the active volcano of Batur Mount and wide Lake of Batur in a valley. It is situated in the plateau area with cool weather surround it. When we stand up at Kintamani, we will be able to see the rural area which is close to the lake. This place is very femous and visited by many tourists everyday.

When we arrived, the weather is good with sunshine. Within 10 minutes, the rain came fast. So that we cannot stop too long for photo opportunity.

What i do not like about this place is when we arrive, they are a lot of locals offering their goods for sales. They even follow you, offer you the price that you like and so on. I find it very irritating!

Tegalalang Rice Field :

Tegalalang countryside is located at 5 km northern part of Ubud Village and own the magnificent view of rice terrace. The rice terrace is designed very beautiful with exquisite hollowing rice field and precisely located on the hill bank. In this place, you will see the Balinese farmer do their rice field in oblique area complete with its system irrigation. You will enjoy the beautiful panorama of valley with rice terrace and coconut trees ornament it.

After Kintamani, we proceed to North Bali. On the way to our destination, the driver has to take another alternative trunk road as there is a funeral ceremony being held at the main road. See! this is the chance for me to experience the village life where i saw pigs (in black and pink colour), chickens and goat.

My sympathy to the pig, coz the farmer will sell it to the market. Later on, he will be one of the delicious dish on the table to be served to the hungry customers.

After another 1.5 hrs journey to go through the narrow road, finally we arrived Sengaraja North Bali at around 4.00pm.