Ubud

After eating an amazing omelet at Bounty, we met I Made (our tour guide) for a day trip of Ubud. He first took us to a Balinese compound (building in compound above), showing us the wall built inside all compound entryways to keep out evil spirits, the roosters used for cockfights before ceremonies, pet porcupines, private temples, & more. It was nice to hear about the Balinese culture from an actual Balinese. He told us all about the peoples' daily offerings (seen everywhere), Hindu beliefs, & other Balinese traditions. He also showed us Batik weaving (which is extremely hard work & takes days to make one piece), the silver maker, & wood carver. The man in charge of the wood carvings was amazing. He was such a happy old man. If we showed interest in a piece, he would sit us down & tell us the folklore that went with it. The people are so spiritual & meaningful here. And they have this overwhelming feeling of happiness and love, which is odd considering they work so hard for so much. It was an amazing culture to learn from. We also went to the Sacred Monkey Forest & Temple. It was so neat to enter their habit & watch them hunt (crab eaters), play, sun bath (our tour guide was like, "Uh oh! Do not disturb!" He was cracking us up)... When we sat down, the monkey just crawled up on our laps to play & look for bananas.

Last, we went to the Bali Safari & Marine Park. Although new & exciting to Bali, it wasn't much more than a zoo to us Westerners. We did take a "safari" through the open zoo, honking at lions to get off the path & driving through waters with giant hippos, BUT I could have definitely skipped it. The best part of the whole park was getting to touch the lion & leopard. It was insane getting so close to them, but it was kind of sad, too. We did go on an out-of-control-probably-not-legal-in-the-US ride, which was really fun.