Bali Babymoon

In the middle of April in Thailand (and much of predominantely buddhist-Asia), is a near week-long national holiday celebrating Buddhist New Year. In Thailand they call it Songkran and it’s a huge water festival where everyone sprays, squirts, pours and throws water on everyone else, which is nice, as its by far the hottest time of the year. Having had fun with it last year, we decided this year to take advantage of the days off and escape the heat a bit, so we headed to Ubud, Bali for about 6 days.
Everyone told us it was our “babymoon,” which I guess is like the last holiday that you and your husband have before the first baby comes. At 7+ months pregnant, I was just happy to relax by the pool, eat yummy food and go to the spa a lot!
We thought Ubud was a fantastic place- really green and lots of great places to explore. It’s located in the interior of the island, a cute little artsy town surrounded by rolling hills of terraced rice paddies and Balinese temples. We didn’t exactly escape the heat though- every morning it was so hot and humid I just thought I’d melt, but by mid-afternoon like clockwork, we had a big rainstorm which cooled everything off and made the late afternoon and evening quite enjoyable. Although Ubud has tons of things to do, I can’t say we took advantage of all that much- they have great cooking schools, art galleries, jewelery workshops where you can make your own, hiking and cycling, yoga and meditation on every corner, etc. I didn’t do any of that! But I did a little shopping and a lot of great eating, and just enjoyed the pool and lazy afternoons reading and waiting out the rain in cute cafes.
One day Steve did a 5hr bike trip into a volcano crater and down back to Ubud, so that was cool, and we did hit the local hash one afternoon (hash=running club) though I stayed behind and just chatted with people. We were also lucky enough to catch up with friends we knew in Colombo who have since moved to Ubud, and we could really see how Ubud could be a place that you could settled down and stay in!