Jalan-jalan means to take a walk, or walk around. That’s exactly what I did on our last full day in Ubud. While Samuel was napping, I went out, intending to go for a short walk to check out Warung Garasi. This is a small warung in an alleyway with a scooter theme that we visited in 2019.
It only took me a few minutes of brisk walking to reach the Warung and confirm that it was still there and largely unchanged. However, by this point I had worked up a good sweat and didn’t really feel like stopping, so I continued north along Jl. Monkey Forest. I headed towards the Ubud Art Market, which we had visited earlier in the day.
After walking up Jl. Monkey Forest without a specific goal in mind, and having reached the Art Market, I decided to try to head for Menari Coffee. This is a small coffee shop which was previously located alongside the Best Western Resort that we stayed at in 2019. I knew (from Google Maps) that they had relocated slightly closer to the centre of Ubud, so I headed up a few back streets (after overshooting a little) and eventually found Coffee Menari.
By this point I was ready for some hydration, having sweated a good amount, so I stopped there for an ice coffee and also bought a bottle of water. I downed both, and refilled my bottle of water, before consulting a map to decide what to do next. I toyed with the idea of getting a Grab Bike back to the hotel, but I could see on the map that I was very close to one end of the Juwuk Manis Rice Field Walk. I had been hoping to do this scenic walk through the rice fields at some point, so I couldn’t resist the chance to check it out, even if the middle of the day was not really the best time to do so.
A short walk brought me to the clearly sign posted start of the Juwuk Manis Rice Field Walk. I walked up a little hill and then found myself among numerous rice fields, punctuated by the occasional hut, villa, or warung. Probably because of the time of the day, there were very few people walking in the area, besides a few workers out in the fields. I did pass one family group, and as I walked passed them (while they were trying to take a photo) I overheard someone directing the poses say een klein beetje. I was tempted to ask if I might help them with their photo and where they were from, but I decided against it and continued walking.
The walk was very scenic (indah!) and I did wish that I could have taken more time. However, I was conscious of the sun and time and so pushed on at a good pace. The walk curves through the rice fields and then heads back towards central Ubud. Getting closer to Ubud once again, I followed a sign which indicated the way to the main street, and after hugging a wall, crossing a drop of a few metres bridge with only a couple of planks, and walking along a long and narrow alley, I emerged back in central Ubud.
Not wanting to catch a Grab bike on the busy main road, I elected to first walk to Jl. Bisma, a road that runs parallel to Jl. Monkey Forest, up which I had walked when I first set out. Once I started walking along Jl. Bisma, I discovered that any time I stopped walking I became acutely aware of my full bladder, so rather than stopping and waiting for a bike, I kept up a brisk walk all the way back to our hotel. I arrived back just as it was time for Samuel to be woken from his nap, and once that was done it was lovely to cool off in the hotel pool.
