Ubud, Top City in Asia

Ubud officially becomes the "Top City in Asia", as a hoop dancing festival approaches.

The winner of Conde Nast Traveler magazine 2009 Readers' Choice Awards for Top City in Asia is the small town of Ubud in Bali, population 8,000.

25,000 readers were surveyed with the evaluation criteria being Atmosphere/Ambience, Culture/Sites, Friendliness, Lodging, Restaurants, and Shopping, with local news reports ascribing Ubud's top showing to the recent filming in the town of Hollywood movie "Eat, Pray, Love" (EPL), starring Julia Roberts.

The top ten, with scores:

1. Ubud, 82.5
2. Bangkok, 82.2
3. Hong Kong, 81.3
4. Chiang Mai, 80.9
5. Kyoto, 80.2
6. Singapore, 79.6
7. Shanghai, 75.9
8. Jaipur, 74.2
9. Tokyo, 72.9
10. Hanoi, 69

In worldwide scoring terms Ubud was an astonishing 5th:

1. Sydney, 86.9
2. San Francisco, 84.8
3. Florence, 84.6
4. Charleston, South Carolina, 83.1
5. Ubud, 82.5

However Bali as a whole, which is described by the Conde Nast online travel guide as a place of

pervasive spirituality, with daily ceremonies at more than 1,000 temples

failed to win the Top Asia Islands category, just losing out to the Maldives.

Meanwhile, basking in its glory, Ubud is to play host to Bali Spirit Festival 2010 in March, said to be

a spiritually charged event that celebrates yoga, dance and music and the synergy of global cultural collaboration through the arts

Pervasive spirituality in Ubud, hoop dancing and yoga.

4,500 people are expected to attend some of the 95 yoga, dance, and music workshops with in addition nightly world music concerts.

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Land of the 5-Star Resort

The Righteous Dude wonders about travel writers’ priorities when selecting Indonesian tourist attraction highlights.

Greetings, fellow IM readers! I’m hoping to encourage you and your friends to share relevant travel experience with other residents and tourists. I thought we would start with a discussion of the best of Indonesia.

In her book, “1000 Places To See Before You Die: A Traveller’s Life List” (http://www.1000beforeyoudie.com/), Patricia Schultz reportedly spent seven years researching the world’s 1000 best places for tourists to visit.

Ms Schultz selected nine locations from Indonesia. Some people will be glad to know that she found more places here than Indonesia's neighbour's Malaysia (5), Singapore (3), Brunei (0), Philippines (3) and Papua New Guinea (3).

However, when I look at the list for Indonesia:

• Hiking/bike-riding in Central Bali
• Four Seasons Resort at Jimbaran Bay
• Ubud and the Amandari (a resort)
• Baliem Valley
• Borobodur and the Amanjiwo (a nearby resort)
• Yogyakarta
• Lombok
• Awanwana (a resort on Pulau Moyo, Sumbawa)
• Torajaland (a.k.a. Tanah Toraja)

I get a little disturbed that about half of the places mentioned are places to stay, rather than tourist attractions themselves. (The page on Lombok also recommends the Oberoi Hotel.)

Amandari Ubud

Now, I know that the place you stay can make that holiday a little more (or less) pleasant for you, but I would have thought that the purpose of travelling to a country like Indonesia is to visit places there, NOT to just stay in a hotel all day; you don’t have to travel overseas to do that.

What proportion of international (and domestic) travellers would choose to stay at places that are so expensive, and what is their motivation for doing so? Is it only the very rich for whom “money is no object”? What proportion of international tourists are happy to spend more on one night at a swish hotel than on the airfare getting there, and little to no time seeing the destination itself?

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