For the first time of our journey through at least some parts of the huge Indonesia, we were able to relax a little bit after reaching Ubud and arriving at the Alas Petulu Cottages. The hotel is nice and clean and we had a very large bedroom with a great view onto the forest behind our resort, a large bathroom with the first bathtub so far and an own balcony where our breakfast was served. The full area was decorated with many different flowers and plants, creating an atmosphere perfect to calm down.

It was quite difficult to find a restaurant on the day before since there are a lot of tourists (luckily not those party guys from Kuta) and a reservation for every good restaurant is highly recommended. Therefore we returned rather late to our small villa and it also took us some time to get up in the morning.

The stairs leading up to our small cottage are, like every other place, decorated with several different plants, blooming with a large variety of greens.

The smaller of two pools lying right in front of our balcony. The large one is situated right underneath the edge, collecting the water from the top one. In the background one can see the small forest, although we are very close to the center of Ubud.

In the afternoon we decided to make a small trip to the heart of Ubud to see the Puri Saren Ubud, also called Ubud Palace. Although it is still in use as the residence for the king of Ubud, some parts are open to the public and very popular with tourists.

The palace consists of several rectangular areas connected to each other by magnificent gates, which are widely used in Indonesia, especially Bali, to connect different regions of temples.

Unlike most larger temples or tourist places, there is no entrance fee for the Puri Saren. And although there are large parts open for tourists and only very few rules to follow, sadly many visitors do not care about those. During the short time we were there, e.g. several people walked through this gate although it is prohibited while other were standing around on the grass (multiple signs in different languages showed that it is not allowed) just to get the best selfies.

This small garden is part of the closed area of the palace.