10.11.11
Today the boys decided thay couldn't hack our busy pace (?!!)
so wanted a lazy day which I conceded to (but of course got my
own way in the end!). So we had breakfast then lounged around
the pool for the morning.
We then went to a restaurant called Deli Cat, which was
recommended in the book for Bobby to have lunch and us
a drink. We can recommend the German sausages and chips.
They do a whole range of sausages and cheese, which you
can select from their shop and have as a ploughmans.
Very tempting! That's one of the things I miss-cheese!!
From there we walked up Monkey Forest road up to the main
Ubud Road and then turned left, to walk out of town. It was
a longer walk than we though. WE wound over a bridge and
up hill passed plenty of spa resorts. Half way up the hill
we came to a big artists studio with loads of pop art
style pictures of the Mono Lisa and decided to go in and
have a look. It was a lovely huge light studio space,
covered in large canvases. All very uninspiring, unoriginal
brightly coloured portraits or Warhol style prints...blah
blah. But we were were welcomed by camp, drunk American
guy louging in a hammock, who when we told him where we were
from started telling us how ridiculous the English were, which
was quite funny!!
Anyway we continued on our mission to find an Art Museum, I wanted
to go and had told the boys it wasn't very far. It did turn out
to be alot farther away than I'd though aswell. But we eventually
got there and the boys were rewarded with a beer (or 3) while I
went in to have a look.
Neka Art Museum is well worth a look. It has a fairly large collection
of Balinese art and foreign artists works that are inspired by
Bali. The first 3 or 4 galleries take you through the historial
progression on Balinese art. From very busy canvasses similar om
style to the traditional wayung (puppets) telling traditional folk
or Hindu stories all the way up to western influenced painting from
the 1930's onwards. The most interesting pieces for me were telling
stories or depicting elements of black magic. There were very good
descriptions of each piece.
There was also a collection of photographs taken by a dutch/american
man Robert A. Koke who set up one of the first hotels in Bali in the
1930's. His photos were taken between 1937 and 1941 and he photographed
some of the different traditional dances, some which took place to
ward of evil spirits.
There were also a whole gallery of paintings by Arie Smit, whose
work I love. His paintings really capture the colours and
vibrancy of the culture in Bali. It is such a sistint culture
even compared to their neighbouring islands, from what we have
seen and been told by locals. They are fiercely proud of their
culture and say if you are born in a village, you will die there too.
Anyway, getting side tracked! I collected the men and we walked
back in to Ubud. We were soon back out again as we had a table booked
at the highly recommended Dirty Duck where we had ordered a day in
advance a whole smoked (yes you guessed it) duck. It was delicious,
and came with satay chicken, prawn crackers, veg and rice. The setting
of the restaurant was also very beautiful. We sat on cushions on the
floor, in our own little pagoda with fountains and little ponds around
us lit by lanterns. Very romantic!
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