The Charms of Ubud: Bali Series
On my last trip to Bali, I was not able to go to Ubud, the premier highlands town of the island, around an hour's drive from Kuta. Ubud is the supposed center of arts and culture of Bali, luring artists, writers and other creative minds. To us Filipinos, Ubud will look like Tagaytay, sans the beautiful Taal Volcano. It has the same atmosphere, cool and pleasant weather, and lush vegetation that stems from the mountainous backdrop. Ubud has attracted a lot of designers from local to international ones, thus, making it a great place to visit some fabulous design hotels and restaurants. We only had 3 hours to spend here though, as we intended to just have lunch in a hillside Indonesian restaurant. Ubud has more Western visitors than Asian visitors and I could see why. Ubud is a mountain village, painted with green rice fields, cascading waterfalls and gushing rivers and creeks. It can be any of the millions of rice plantations we have in the Philippines. What makes Ubud so special is