Ubud

The other day I went on a guided tour of Ubud. I was the only one on the tour. Ubud is considered the main cultural region of Bali and is not on the coast. It was a nice break from the maze and chaos of Kuta beach where every five feet, seriously, you get someone trying to sell you something, even their sister.

The first stop was in Tohpati so see some Batik Ikat weaving where they design and produce sarongs. After the display there is always a gift shop.

Next I saw the Barong and Kris Dance performance in Batubulan which was a traditional Indonesian dance depicting the struggle between good and evil with elaborate costumes and the best part was the orchestra or band or whatever you want to call it.

Then to Celuk to see "silver processing." Basically a five minute demo with another tour of a gift shop selling jewelry in US dollars.

It gets better. In Batuan I visited a pura desa, a Hindu village temple. I had to wear a sarong as I walked around the area. Not my best look. These beautiful temples are everywhere.

I saw woodcarving in Mas and Kemenuh with yet another gift shop but this one was truly increadible. They had these huge picture framed carvings that are made from one piece of wood. (fourth picture) I asked how long it took to carve something like that and he said it took at least eight months! Mind blowing work here but even the small pieces were expensive.

We stopped at another display, this one of painting. I toured the large galleries of paintings and literally had a guy following me the whole time asking me if I wanted to buy something.

The final stop was the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary. Anyone who knows me knows I normally don't care much for monkeys. Must be all those terrible monkey movies from the 1970's like, "Any which way but loose" or "BJ and the Bear." What were they thinking? Anyways, I liked the Monkey Forest a lot. This Japanese girl was sitting beside one of the monkeys as her friend was taking a picture. The monkey jumped on top of her. I got a shot of that. The monkey stole some things from her bag and ran off with it.

The monkeys are so expressive. Their eyes. Their hands. It's like they are little people. It's beautiful and kind of creepy. The grounds were beautiful too with little creeks and long flowing vines.

Well, enough work for today. Off for a massage. At a really good place it only costs $10 for 1.5 hours!