The Miracle at Ubud

I never saw it coming. When I separated Ang from her beloved Starwood, I figured she would eventually come around and one day be comfortable picking random places from the Internet, despite the look on her face when she moved into the Diggler Room. But just one day later, I think there will be a little wetness around the eyes when we check out tomorrow to move to our next destination.

As we’ve come to find from our brief time here, there is an incredible story behind this hotel that highlights the kind of unexpected things that can only be found by stepping off the beaten path. Until recently, we’ve learned, this wasn’t even a hotel at all, but a retreat built from scratch by one old Japanese man (whom I’ve come to call Master Ugway, from Kung Fu Panda fame) who set out to build a place where he could bring different cultures together and introduce them to the local village people. At one point, over 80% of the villagers worked on the site, constructing buildings and managing the groups that came to visit for seminars, festivals, and the like.

The fall of the markets hit hard here, as much of the funding for the project came from the owner’s personal portfolio, to the point that the primary mission had to be abandoned and a new one implemented in its place. To make the facility self-sustaining, it was reborn as a hotel, staffed by people from the local village, who would have in it an opportunity to learn new skills and earn higher incomes. Slowly, the word is leaking out, and people are finding the place the same as we did, through positive reviews online. In our short stay, we have met people from Denmark and Victoria with the exact same story of how they came to stay.

We also learned that the story behind the themed rooms is that each one represents a place that the owner has visited and a culture that he wanted to recreate here. And while it has been a unique place to stay in its own right, understanding some of the history only adds to the charm. Indeed, none other that my trusty sidekick raised the question of whether we should stay longer.

After breakfast, and a brief detour involving locking ourself out of our room and having to call a locksmith, we headed back to another part of Ubud to see a few more galleries and, most importantly, find some reliable Internet. We also laid out plans for out next stop, which is going to be Lombok, the next island of consequence from Bali. It is supposedly even more mellow than what we have experienced so far, and we’ll be staying on the beach, so it will be the part of this trip where we can do a whole lot of nothing. The travel plans are still a little up in the air (not sure if we are going by boat of flying), but we’ll figure it out in the morning and get there one way or another.

With most of the plan in order, we headed off to dinner at our hotel (since it seemed far too involved to take the car back to Ubud). The experience, I can safely say, was totally unexpected. One of the staff had told us earlier how the owner, as part of his interest in mixing cultures, sent the cook off to places like India and Thailand, with the result that in an odd little hotel in the middle of nowhere, we had one of the most spectacular meals not only of this trip, but in a very long time (granted most of our meals out these days are at Olive Garden or Red Robin, but still, this was amazing). Had I known what we were in for, I might have agreed to forget about Lombok and spend the rest of the time in Bali right here in the Diggler Room.

Despite our increasing attachment to the Michi (we can’t say enough good things about it, and the kindness of Master Ugway in particular), the wheels are in motion for an early start tomorrow as we head for Lombok. We are also made the decision to day to skip Cambodia and focus only on Bali and Vietnam this trip. We’re loving it here, and in choosing to spend a few extra days to see more of the country, we realize we just can’t fit three countries into one trip. Missing Cambodia is sad, but the good news is that we’re already talking about next year’s trip to Cambodia, Laos and Northern Thailand.