We had seen a cool staircase on our daily walks to Ubud, and decided that today we would climb that staircase and see where it led to. We climbed the 40 or so steps, each side of the stairway was covered in greenery and moss covered statues. We saw a carving of a triforce (from Zelda) on a bridge along the way, and what looked like hindu prayer flags. Once we arrived at the top of the steps where the walkway made a gradual decline, past shops, small restaurants and home stays. We walked along this roadway for about 10 minutes when the road ended. We then had the option to go to the left or the right. We chose right. This roadway was barely wide enough for a scooter and skirted a gully with a sheer drop down to a river some 30 metres below. We weaved our way along the top of this drop off for about 10 minutes, barely diving out of the way of zooming scooters. I noticed on Maps.me (the app we use for data free map navigation) that there was a bridge to our left, but I could not see it anywhere.

We finally noticed a small set of steps in the mud that led down to the bottom of the narrow gully. We decided to be explorers and climbed down the muddy steps and into a magical temple carved into the cliff sides. The “walls” of the temple were the rock faces of the little river valley. Out from among the moss covered walls emerged faces, hundreds of faces, each carved by hand into the sides of the valley. Some of the faces were scary, some were goofy, but each was unique and incredible. We stood in awe, scared to adventure too far, as it felt like somewhere we shouldn’t be, like we had stumbled on somebody’s “secret” temple.

There was a tiny wooden bridge linking the two sides of the valley and crossing over the narrow but incredibly clear stream. We stood on the bridge and took in all of our surroundings for quite awhile. We then decided to continue up the opposite side of the valley. Along the way we bumped into a super smiley temple attendant who exclaimed “hello mister” to Jives upon seeing him. We walked along another little valley and emerged behind a shrine. Walking along little step stones we arrived at a beautiful plant covered temple in the shaded valley. We spent some time there before deciding to venture further. I saw on Maps.me a cafe called “Rice Terrace View” and figured… there must be rice terraces there, so we set off in search of rice terraces.

The walk took us down the narrowest lanes yet, emerging in a field completely surrounded by rice fields. We walked along the weaving pathway beside streams, the walkway was no wider than 3 feet and there was water on either side of us. We walked along this “roadway” for about an hour, meeting ducks and admiring the scenery, occasionally making ourselves super skinny to let a scooter zoom by. The walk was magical! I wish it was easier to describe where the path was so that others could try it out for themselves, but I guess that’s why it was so secluded and magical. We then headed back to our hotel for an earlier swim than usual, before having a beer and setting out to find lunch. 

We walked to the place where we had dinner the night before “Warung Pulan Kelapa” and had lunch. I had a dish called Kelapa Gado Gado (I think) a peanut sauce dip with egg,  lettuce, spinach, cabbage and potato to dip in it.