Anyone who knows me at all must not be surprised when I state that there is no weather hot enough for a cold shower. I prefer my shower to be hot or at least warm and before you go and call me crazy I assure that there is the same logic behind it as there is in dipping into an ice cold water in the middle of the winter, the breath taking sport that we Finnish call avantouinti. When you dip into the cold water the air (even when -20°C) feels warm afterwards. It works the same way when you have a hot shower, the air feels cooler afterwards. In Bali there is no such thing as hot shower. I haven’t even seen warm shower. There is only one tap and that’s for cold water. I knew to expect it but that still didn’t prepare me for my first cold shower in Bali.
After my breath taking shower experience I booked my shuttle bus to Ubud. I paid 60 000 rupees which is around $7 or 5€. There were seven passengers, seven backpacks, a trolley, a surfboard, the driver and a minibus. One girl her feet out of the window, me sitting on my other leg the other one on top of my trolley and under one backpack and one quy squatting on the seat surfboard on the roof we started the journey. All windows open we shuffled through the traffic. I felt the warm wind on my face and got that lovely feeling of complete freedom. For a moment I had no worries at all. The driver admitted that we had a bit of an issue with non existing leg space in the bus so he made an arrangement for us to swap the bus. We got a bigger vehicle and the journey continued.
I was a bit worried how to find accommodation in Ubud but the problem was solved easily. As soon as I got out of the bus I was offered a room for good price. The price was actually quite good 100 000 rupees (which is around $11 or 8€) per night breakfast included and the room turned out to be even better than the hotel room in Kuta where I paid 250 000. The place is a lovely home stay called Widia which is the name of my host. He is also a painter and my room is decorated with few of his paintings. His business card also mentions Balinese massage and cooking class. His house is located within walking distance from Ubud’s main road but far enough not to hear the cars. The street is absolutely lovely. There are hardly any shops just houses and beautiful flowering trees. Along the street there are decorative gates and when you look inside you can see the elephant headed hindu god Ganesha. It seems like paradise on earth though I’m quite worried about the amount of roosters I’ve seen walking around. If only one rooster could get me up at 7.30 on holiday I wonder what 10 of them would be capable of.
