The EPL Phenomenon Blame Elizabeth Gilbert. Those of you who managed to make it through the turgid best-selling novel Eat, Pray, Love, might have an inkling of what is coming up. Ubud features quite heavily in our heroine's search for fulfilment, and the knock-on effect in the town has been huge. Acolytes have swarmed to Ubud looking for (and sometimes finding) places and people referenced in the book. The actual characters mentioned are surely sick and tired of rather desperate looking thirty-something single women turning up on their doorsteps. The economic benefits of the novel to the area ratcheted up a whole other notch in mid-2009, when the eponymously named movie was shot in and around Ubud, Julia Roberts and all. Just be aware though that Ubud cannot necessarily guarantee a remedy for every mid-life crisis. |