So, in keeping with the theme of our trip, "Eat, Pray, Love", we headed into Ubud for pizza after the morning at the art gallery. According to our tour leader, Pizza Bagus has the best pizza in Bali. "Bagus" also means good in Balinese. It got its reputation as the best pizza joint in Bali from Australian surfers. My opinion of the pizza. It was o.k. It was California style pizza with the super thin crust. I love the big, thick, chewy crusts of Chicago style pizza (and the fact they are baked in a butter coated pan helps too). Pizza Bagus doesn't come close. However, pretty much everyone coming in to eat were westerners, so I suppose it was close enough to that comfort food.
Joining us for lunch was Kitty Yancey, the travel writer from USAToday. That is her at the other end of the table. She was interviewing our tour leaders about our trip because she is writing a piece for when the movie "Eat, Pray, Love", staring Julia Roberts opens in August.
This tour arranged by Spirit Quest Tours, is the only "Eat, Pray, Love" themed tour out there. We were actually the first group to go on it. It may become a popular tour after the movie is released this summer...and I can say I went on the inaugeral trip.
While at Pizza Bagus, we had a special visitor, Yude Andiko, one of the many people Elizabeth Gilbert met while in Bali.
O.k. how wild is this. I went up stairs to get my borrowed copy of Eat, Pray, Love to leaf through so I could find the chapter on Yude, the book opened right up to the chapter! So, if you would like to consult the book for background info on Yude (in the book his name is spelled Yudhi - - either way, its pronounced You-Day) he is chapter 83.
He is a really neat person. Very nice and personable and as you can tell from his huge smile, he's a happy person. He talked with me and my fellow Washingtonion for a good bit of time and told us about a contract he had just signed with a music lable in England and his upcoming album.
Yude had spent several years in New York City until he was deported after 9-11, despite being married to an American, when the US clamped down on all immigrants from muslim countries, Indonesia is a muslim country. When he was in the US, he was part of the music scene in New York, this had been a childhood dream of his.
Now, he performs at clubs in Bali.
Listen to some of Yude's work from his album "Searching".
He was so sweet when we bought copies of his album and we asked him to autograph them. "Why do you want my autograph? I'm not anyone important."
We replied, "Not yet. And we can all say we met you before you became famous."
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