I had one final day in Bali, with a flight to Australia departing from Denpasar at 10:30pm. I did not have a real plan, but the weather outside looked really nice and I was a few days behind on blog posts, so I wanted to find a couple of cool cafes to do some work and take some time walking around the rice terraces. I left my large backpack at the front desk at my hotel, but brought my laptop with me in my small backpack, and set out for the day. The first cafe I went to was called The Suku and was located less than ten minutes walk from Pulu Sari Suites.

I arrived at The Suku at 11am, and upon arrival, the waiter told me that all the available seats indoors were reserved starting at noon, so I chose a seat outside. I was the only customer outside, probably because it was 85 degrees and humid. Luckily I got used to the heat quickly. I ordered a kopisuku (I think this is a pun on "kopi susu" which is a typical way of preparing coffee (kopi in Indonesian) in Indonesia, and Suku, the name of the cafe), which was an iced coffee with milk and coconut sugar. It was absolutely delicious. I wanted to order a smoothie bowl to eat, but they were out, so I went for some pancakes instead. This ended up being a good choice, they were delicious, and served with a really good "caramelized banana" which had a creme brulee-like crust on top.

I spent about two hours working on my blog at The Suku. I even ordered a second kopisuku after I finished the first one. Eventually, my laptop was overheating and working was becoming difficult, which I took as a signal to move somewhere else. I took a Grab Bike to Saraswati Temple in the center of Ubud, because there was a street near the temple that supposedly leads up to some rice terraces with nice cafes. After about twenty minutes of walking amid some picturesque fields I ended up at Sweet Orange warung and hotel. I sat down at a table overlooking the rice terraces and ordered a sunrise juice, which was very purple thanks to dragonfruit. I sat for another hour or so to do more work.

My plan now was to continue north down the path, because according to the internet it would connect to a second path that I could follow back south to a point along the main road a couple hundred meters west from where I started. Very quickly, however, the path became this very narrow walkway along a small creek through a dark jungle. There was a stray dog that took notice of me and clearly wanted me to follow it.

After fifteen or so minutes of walking through the jungle, I found a place where the path connected to a second path heading back south. A farmer also took notice of me and pointed me in the right direction, up some stairs out of the jungle and towards some more rice terraces. I walked for about thirty minutes back out to the main road and ended up right back in the middle of Ubud. The weather in central Bali is very unpredictable, but it was feeling humid and getting a little colder and very lightly drizzling, so I was concerned it may rain hard soon. I sat down at Kafe Batan Waru and ordered some food. There was one more local dish I wanted to try before I left, nasi campur, which similar to the Malaysian nasi lemak, is rice served with an assortment of meats and sides. The nasi campur was alright but I think the enjoyment is entirely up to the enjoyment of the sides, and I didn't care for some of them.

I sat around for a while longer trying to figure out how to color correct underwater images that I took the day before, to which I was unsuccessful. Since it still hadn't started raining, I got up and went for one last walk around Ubud, trying to take in one last taste of the town. It was almost time to head to the airport, since I knew it would be at least a ninety minute drive, but I wanted to eat dinner in Ubud since I had read the food offerings at Ngurah Rai airport were not the best, and I did not think there would be a lounge I could use either. I took a Grab to Coconut Kitchen, a juice bar located very close to my hotel. I had a very large banana, mango, and pineapple juice, and some chicken satay. The juice was really good and really inexpensive. The satay was adequate, but not the best I had tasted in Bali. While eating a heavy downpour began, so I decided to take my time enjoying the juice hoping the rain would let up a little.

Eventually the rain died down and I called a Grab car with multiple stops to take me to the hotel to get my bags, and then proceed on to the airport. My driver Wayan was very friendly, and the drive to the airport was much less eventful than the ride from the airport had been a couple of days earlier.

Eventually the rain died down and I called a Grab car with multiple stops to take me to the hotel to get my bags, and then proceed on to the airport. My driver Wayan was very friendly, and the drive to the airport was much less eventful than the ride from the airport had been a couple of days earlier.

I got to the airport and headed to the Virgin Australia check-in area. Virgin Australia requires all international passengers to check in in-person at the airport, and they only had nine counters open to handle passengers on three flights all departing within an hour period (to Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide). For some reason they also decided to split the queue into two separate queues, but they weren't split by flight, they were both the same line, however one moved three to four times faster than the other. It took about an hour in line to get checked in, and then I rushed through security and immigration and headed to my gate.

At the gate, security officers were conducting additional screening for liquids, since no liquids larger than 100mL were allowed on board. The security officer opened my bag and saw how well it was packed and did not bother trying to move anything around to look for liquids.

I was a little tired but I knew I needed to sleep on this flight, so I took some melatonin while waiting to board. I got on board and went to my seat, 24A. I fell asleep as we were taking off and slept for about 5.5 hours, and woke up shortly before landing in Sydney.