green bali

We arrived in Bali at midnight and were whisked to our guesthouse in the dark, waking up our first morning amid the chaos/serenity that is Ubud. High-end organic vegan restaurants and yoga studios line the main roads, which are seething with more scooters than we've seen yet - it's like watching the currents and back-eddies in a river.

But walk down any lane and you find yourself in luscious green rice paddies, quiet and beautiful.

Near the end of our week in Ubud (after exploring the city, connecting with other traveling families and taking a ceramics class) the girls went to a birthday party for a new friend, and the boys headed out into the countryside near the Batur volcano for a day-long cycling tour - 25 km through back lanes, rice paddies and river valleys.

But the highlight of the tour was a pick-up football match. Although we got schooled by the local kids, Buddy did score a couple.

From Ubud we went to a weekend family camp at the Green School, an international school established by an ex-pat Canadian about five years ago. All the buildings on the stunning campus were built with bamboo, using traditional designs. We slept in a yurt, made chocolate from cacao beans,  picked coconuts, did laughing yoga, went on a night safari where a local named Cobra caught snakes that he smelled in the jungle, and met a bunch of fun families. Oh, and capped it off with a mud fight. Good times.

We are now up in the hills in the northern part of the island in a small village called Munduk, which is reminding us very much of our time in Ella, Sri Lanka.  Green, mountainous and cool, with lots of great hiking.

We walked 2 km to the closest waterfall, and then took a detour at a sign that promised an organic cafe just 900 metres (yeah right) down a small path.

We didn't meet another person on the trail, but after 45 minutes of walking through coffee plantations, giant bamboo and avocado trees, we did find the restaurant.

While the owner cooked us up a random assortment of local dishes for lunch, we sat in the mist and played with the resident kitten. As we left and thanked the cook, he told us how the small pancake dish was made with all ingredients from his property, and was a dark green colour from a leaf he used in its preparation. With the chocolate sauce we doused them in, we may have missed that fact...