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a central location and a less-hurried pace than the
south, the Ubud area still shows glimpses of its basically
rural character.
Ubud is 300 metres higher and thus cooler than the south.
The air is pungent, smelling of earth, river and forests.
Bright stars crowd the sky at night. Wandering the town’s
back lanes in the crisp night air is both pleasant and
safe.
A popular tourist destination, traditional culture remains
vital despite the influx of large numbers of visitors.
This town manages to be touristy without being tacky.
Ubud boasts some of Bali’s most stunning resorts,
spas and sophisticated stand–alone restaurants
serving the best of Asian and Western cuisines. A visit
to this country town also offers the chance to savour
such delicacies as smoked duck (bebek betutu)
or the famed spit-roasted and mouth-watering suckling
pig (babi guling).
The town’s princes have always been enthusiastic
patrons of the arts and, culturally speaking, Ubud is
to Bali what Kyoto is to Japan or what Paris is to France.
In fact, many of Bali’s most accomplished dancers,
musicians, painters and carvers live in and around the
Ubud environs.
Ubud’s growing reputation as a flourishing cultural
centre was virtually guaranteed with the arrival of the
artistic genius I Gusti Nyoman Lempad (1860-1978), a gifted
painter, sculptor and architect who kept active until
his death at the age of 116. Lempad’s house, crafted
by the artist himself, still stands in the centre of town.
Between the 1930s and the 1940s, Ubud’s role as
the epicentre of Balinese culture was further enhanced
by the arrival of eminent European painters (Bonnet, Spies),
anthropologists (Mead, Bateson), writers and musicologists
(Covarrubias, McPhee), and the rise of Balinese painters
and sculptors (Ida Bagus Nyana, I Gusti Ketut Kobot, Dewa
Batuan), as well as architects, lontar (palm leaf) experts
and assorted literati.
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artists are well
represented. For lovers of surrealistic collages and erotic
art, visit the flamboyant hilltop cultural complex of
Antonio Blanco, the ‘Dali of Bali’ - an unusual
avant-garde venue available for events, dance presentations
and gala dinner parties for groups from 15 to 150.
With hundreds of shops selling antiques, woodcarvings,
woven crafts, textiles and originally designed jewellery,
Ubud is also an agreeable place to shop, offering more
affordable prices than Bali’s other tourist centres.
Many of Ubud’s surrounding hamlets and villages
– Campuan, Penestanan, Peliatan, Batuan, Pengosekan,
Tegallalang - specialize in specific crafts and produce
a surprising percentage of the wares sold in the island’s
art shops and boutiques.
Ubud is also home to Bali’s only literary festival.
An annual community-based event, the Ubud Writers and
Readers Festival is held from late September through to
early October and showcases both local and international
writers. This year’s festival includes up to twenty
workshops, covering themes as diverse as journalism; foreign
literature; short story, grant, and travel writing; and
poetry. A new addition is the children’s programme
which features literary activities for all age groups.
As you walk the streets, you will notice that the performing
arts are a vibrant component of community life. From the
early 1920s, the royal family ensured that the most talented
teachers of dance, music and drama were brought to Ubud,
both to entertain the king and also to impart their knowledge
to local performers.
Ubud and its satellite villages are still major dance
centres where every night of the week up to five performances,
as well as music recitals and dance rehearsals, can be
happening simultaneously. Tickets are for sale on any
downtown street corner. Temple festivals, religious and
purification ceremonies – including spectacular
cremations - are other common sights in the Ubud area.
It is Ubud’s village charm that has always attracted
celebrities from around the world - among them Noel Coward,
Barbara Hutton and Charlie Chaplin – preserving
this lively rural town as one of Bali’s most endearing
cultural treasures.
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