First things first: Velvet has set itself apart with a healthy dose of eccentricity in terms of decor and ambiance, which makes it completely unlike any restaurant we’ve been to in Ubud, and perhaps even all of Bali.

UPDATE March 4: Bali authorities have traced the people who were in contact with the New Zealand woman and they are currently being monitored. Read on here.

New Zealand today confirmed its first case of COVID-19, said to be a female citizen in her 60s who recently traveled from Iran to Auckland via Bali.

Officials from the Bali Health Agency are now tracing the travel history of a Japanese national who tested positive for COVID-19 following his visit to the island, days after a Health Ministry official said that the patient did not represent a case of the deadly disease by seemingly confusing the name of the disease with the name of the virus that causes it.

Nearly one thousand Chinese nationals have so far applied for an emergency stay permit across immigration offices in Bali amid the coronavirus outbreak that is fueling fears of a global pandemic.

The Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) in Badung apprehended a Belarusian man yesterday after he was kicked out from his boarding house in Kuta for allegedly creating a disturbance under the influence of magic mushrooms.