Ubud was just ground zero for the digital nomad movement back then and attracted a lot of bitcoiners who were recently balling out because it had mooned to ~$1k around Dec/Jan '13.

Hubud co-working space in particular was the spot, as internet was still incredibly slow across the entire island, except there. Pieter Levels was always working at the standing desk near the entrance building the early NomadList MVP, and there was a guy who would give an orange-pill Bitcoin presentation there every Thursday or Friday, it cost like $20 and you would leave it with a wallet and knowledge and the $20 equivalent in satoshis.

Unfortunately I never went to that presentation and I began to take BTC more seriously some years later, whoopsie.

There were a lot of middle aged programmer guys renting insane villas and throwing LSD fueled orgy parties, it was strange times.

As I mentioned almost every taxi in Ubud was accepting BTC -- I think that guy who was giving the presentations and his crew had orangepilled the whole taxi cartel and many of the cafes, restaurants, hotels etc.

It didn't last, as I believe a while later Indonesia passed a law either explicitly banning using crypto for these sort of transactions, or they said you could only transact with Rupiah.

I was coming and going from the island but just so happened to be in Bali during the height of 2 bullruns after that and it's been funny to see how things have evolved - from a real pure & punky counterculture ethos in 2013 led by gen Xers and older, to the much younger altcoin liquidity farming defi bros in the last go round.