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The major attractions of Ubud and adjacent villages are their art museums and galleries - well worth browsing before you buy any paintings yourself. As there are so many impressive art galleries, you'd do well to miss out Ubud's most central museum, the Puri Lukisan on Jalan Raya (daily 8am-4pm; Rp10,000), which is poor in comparison to the Neka Museum and ARMA. The temple complex of Pura Saraswati is set in a delightful water garden, landscaped around a huge lotus pond behind central Ubud's Cafe Lotus - either enter via the gateway on Jalan Raya, or go through the restaurant. A forest of metre-high lotus plants leads you right up to the red-brick entrance gate, through which you'll find a pavilion housing the two huge barong costumes used by villagers for exorcizing rituals: the lion-like Barong Ket and the wild boar Barong Bangkal. Balinese women feature prominently in the paintings displayed in all the big art museums, but there is barely a handful of works by women artists in any of them. To redress this imbalance, British-born artist Mary Northmore set up the Seniwati Gallery of Art by Women on Jalan Sriwedari, off Jalan Raya (daily 9am-5pm; free) which covers the complete range of mainstream Balinese art styles; the works are supported by excellent information sheets and well-informed staff. Just west of the Campuhan bridge, about 1km west of central Ubud, an ostentatious gateway leads you into Antonio Blanco's House and Art Gallery (daily 10am-5pm; Rp10,000), former home of the flamboyant Catalan expatriate who died in 1999 at the age of 88. Blanco specialized in erotic paintings and drawings, particularly portraits of Balinese women in varying states of undress but, whatever you think of his artistic achievements, you'll almost certainly enjoy the exuberance of his works and his gallery space, which is left as it was during his lifetime.
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