This week I’m finishing off my honeymoon travel diary (you can see the Bali Part I here and the Hong Kong diary here) with some final pictures of our time in Ubud and Singapore.
Finishing up our time in Ubud, we visited the Monkey Forest- which even though we thought was going to be cheesy and touristy ended up being the best $3 we spent on the trip. Also in Ubud are the picturesque Tegallaleng terraced rice paddies, as well as a great downtown area for local Balinese shopping. My favorite shops I found were IkatBatik for locally made batik textiles, and Uluwatu Balinese Lace for handmade clothing with lace inserts, such as these pants and this top that I bought.
One morning Mr. R and I woke up at 2:30am to hike to the top of Mount Batur, the second highest active volcano in Bali. While the views were spectacular, the hike was not a walk in the park, so I would highly recommend wearing real hiking shoes, a warm jacket and long pants if you decide to venture on this climb. One of the most unique parts of the hike was that our guide actually cooked us eggs in a hole on the side of the mountain that released extremely hot air from the active volcano. It was like a hot spring of air, and given about 10 minutes, we came out with perfectly hot boiled steamed eggs for a healthy breakfast of champions.
For our last stop in Bali, we headed down to the southwestern-most point of the island, a small cliffside surf locale of mostly boutique hotels called Uluwatu. While there is one of Bali’s oldest and most revered temples in this spot, Mr. R and I forewent seeing another temple and decided to relax in our hotel and enjoy our insane infinity cliff-edge pool. Since almost all of the hotels in this region are set atop of the steep 30-story tall cliffs, you have the opportunity for yet another hike down steep stairs to get to the beach. The reward? Almost entirely secluded beaches and insane cliff-edge views. The downside- there’s no way to get out other than climbing back up!
Our stop in Singapore was quite brief, only 12 hours to be exact. Knowing this, we decided to give ourselves an eating tour of the city. Although almost everything is not pictured below, we enjoyed a matcha latte and rose geranium cake in a cafe in Haji Lane (the young, hipster street in town with mexican restaurants and street art aplenty), a fruit tart, ham and cheese pastry and millefeuille crepe cake in the basement of the Ion Orchard Mall, traditional Hainanese chicken rice, beef noodles and chicken gyoza in the Maxwell Road Hawker Centre, and char siu bao and red bean shaved ice from Lau Pa Sat, the oldest food center in Singapore with Victorian columns and cast iron buttresses. In short, we did not do a lot of things in Singapore, but we certainly did not go hungry.
Overall it was a fantastic trip, and Mr. R and I can only hope to go back and spend more time in each of these places to really get to know the lifestyle and culture of the people. Have you ever been? What’s your favorite thing to do in Bali or Singapore?
{Tegallaleng Rice Paddies}
{Typical monkey activites in the Ubud Monkey forest}
{IkatBatik, a local Batik shop in downtown Ubud}
{our view of Ganung Anung, atop Mount Batur}
{The most insane infinity pool at the Alila Villas Uluwatu}
{alone on the beach of Uluwatu}
{Haji lane in Singapore}
{Lau Pa Sat in Singapore}
{had to make a tea stop at TWG tea}
