It’s been a week since we landed back in Sydney and it already feels like a distant memory or some beautiful dream that we were actually in Bali for two whole weeks.
I nearly didn’t make the yoga retreat after spraining my ankle (trying to very unelegantly jump off a boat) and Simon wasn’t 100% after he picked up the Bali belly – eating 5 chicken (well, we think they were chicken) skewers from the night markets. Enough said.
Ah well, I guess these are the parts of travelling that you gotta roll with, and there were some major highlights to make up for it. I discovered Ubud is a raw food mecca with at least a dozen raw food cafes and restaurants with a partly raw food menu or a fully raw food menu.
I felt like I had died and gone to heaven! I was starting to not feel so good after a week of cooked food, dairy and food combinations I hadn’t had in over a year and my raw food snacks had long gone into my tummy. Even though the yoga retreat was LIFE CHANGING – thank you Iyan and Claude of OneWorld, it was a little difficult to communicate dietary requirements so I quite often ended up eating whatever was served as it was just proving too hard to explain that grapefruit is different to grapes and dairy means it comes from a cow.
It was amazing the difference I felt in only a few days of eating raw. And because it is incredibly cheap we were eating like Kings for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
For example you can buy a kilo of organic spinach for approx $3 over there. In Sydney you would be lucky to get 100 grams for the same price. Breakfast of Raw Granola and Cashew Milk was 25,000IDR, which is approx $2.50AUD.
We also visited Bali Buddah, I had a delish raw food tasting plate which consisted of jicama – a yummy root vegetable with an apple like crunch and a touch of sweetness, semi dried tomatoes, sliced cucumber, hommos and raw crackers the size of a planet. And THE biggest bowl of salad I have ever seen for $6. It was incredibly fresh and tasty. And the staff everywhere were always so obliging.
You know one of the things I love about Balinese people is they are always so happy and have time for a chat, they are very peaceful and centred people, with a strong sense of community… I think having a strong religious focus in their culture really helps this, I think something that is missing from parts of our society today.
On a side note we noticed, maybe not so much in Ubud but while we were on Gili, how many overweight young children there were. Food manufacturers have well and truly got their claws into the market over there, MSG and TBHQ is in EVERYTHING, I mean even a plain packet of chips has MSG and TBHQ in it… crazy. I even stumbled across white bread dyed green..yum, double whammy with the food additives.
Enough of the deep stuff! I have lots of photos to share with you so here they are – I hope this inspires you to take a trip to Ubud sometime if you haven’t already been, it will delight your senses and your tastebuds!
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