The Diary We decided to hire a bemo to take us to Tampaksiring and Gunung Kawi. After not having much luck getting a public bemo we haggled with a driver and agreed on a fee of 4,500rp each.
Driving through Indonesia has to be experienced. Overtaking consists of tooting your horn and going for it. The assorted animals in the middle of the road, the people walking on the side and the traffic coming in the opposite direction will all get out of the way. Or so the theory goes.
At Tampaksiring, as usual, we were expected to cover our legs and wear a temple scarf. I was wearing long trousers, Beth had her sarong and we'd all brought our scarves. Good job, because they wanted to charge us 5,000rp. I think the temple was to the holy spring of Tirta Empul. We weren't particularly impressed. Bali has running water everywhere anyhow.
Next it was Gunung Kawi and our temple scarves alone were enough to get us in. We ignored all the usual sellers and beggars and made our way down the steps. Yet again we weren't really impressed. The burial towers were carved into rock and although it probably was a great feat, they just weren't very interesting to look at.
Back at Ubud for lunch we chatted to an old couple from the Isle of Wight. They were taking 3 months to travel and only had a week or so left. They'd been caught in a blizzard in NZ and her luggage had failed to turn up in Bali. They've had more bad luck than us in our 7 months of travelling. Well, Oz did get run down by a car.
The Diary Today we hired bikes and cycled out to Goa Gajah and Yeh Pulu. At Goa Gajah (the elephant cave) we met another local and got quite friendly with him. he took us back to his home in Bedulu and then walked us miles across the paddy fields (not easy) to the village rice temple. We then went to the temple with the relief of tigers, horses etc (Yeh Pulu) and encountered a hatstand old woman and an Indonesian hippy trying to play House of the Rising Sun on a badly tuned pink acoustic guitar.
Goa Gajah
Rice Temple
We went back to our guides' house to pick up our bikes and he offered to show us out of the village. It was obvious he wanted some money but being the poor travellers that we are, we made him suffer by waiting for him to ask us. Eventually Beth gave him 10,000rp (less than 1 quid each) and told him to use it for his education and not as an offering.
We then cycled up the road to Pura Penataran Sasih temple - the moon temple - where a once yearly ceremony was about to happen. (The Indonesian year = 210 days). It had the atmosphere of a fair with a stalls set up outside. Women were bringing offerings of food - fruit, rice, cakes, chickens - all nicely presented in a sort of pyramid they carried on their heads. Beth was propositioned by an Indonesian with poor English but somehow she resisted the offer. We then cycled back to Ubud via the back route, which zig-zaged through villages, packs of dogs, gaggles of geese, down hills, up hills and past paddy fields.
In the evening Beth was stricken by her social conscience and got herself worked up about the Indonesian way of life and her inability to do anything about it.
2012 Not much to add really but you can read more about Bali here.
The Diary Another free breakfast - this appears to be the norm in Bali. Despite offers from all and sundry we decline to book on another dance trip. We ventured to the monkey forest where Beth purchased a couple of bags of peanuts. unfortunately, the normally quite docile monkeys got a bit excited by this and couldn't wait for their food. They just jumped on Beth, stole the bags and opened them with their mouths. There were monkeys everywhere - I wonder why they don't venture out of this small wood. I spent ages trying to get a good shot of a monkey's face but he wouldn't play ball.
Around the corner we came across our first temple. We couldn't go in without a sash but a quick bit of haggling with a little old lady got us one each at the bargain price of 1,500rp per sash. in we went and took a few photos. As we were coming out I started talking to a local and asked him about the temple. He was very friendly and started showing us around the forest, down to the big banyan tree and to other small temples including some graves.
His name was Wayan (the first born) and he was the brother of one of the lads that worked at the Ibunda Inn. He was also a bit of a painter and showed us to his house. It soon became obvious that he did this often i.e. befriended some tourists, showed them around and tried to sell them a painting. Beth obliged and bought a very small painting.
Later on we walked to the local at museum, up a long hill where I couldn't tell whether they were building a new road or ruining the old one. We saw lots of strange Balinese art - strange colours, no perspective, loads of detail and images crammed in - and some by European artists - usually Balinese nudes. We then wandered back down the hill to the Spanish artist Blanco's estate. In real life he was as completely hatstand, egotistical, megalomaniacal and stupid as his picture in the museum suggested. Oh and he was a complete pervert. I couldn't be bothered to argue with him and I was waiting for Beth to rise to the bait but she didn't. We decided he stopped talking to us when he got bored with us - but that was a long time after I became bored with him. Still, he must be ding something right, there can't be too many people in Bali with a Merc in the garage.
Dinner was a great pizza in the cafe opposite the Ibunda Inn.
2012 Jaden did a school project about Ubud and the Monkey Forest last year.
The Diary My mam's and Beth's mam's birthdays. We celebrated by getting out of Kuta. The Perama Bus Company, a slightly smaller concern than Greyhound, squeezed us, lots of other passengers and everyone's luggage onto a small bus with no air conditioning. Fortunately the journey only took 50 minutes. Upon arrival at Ubud we were inundated with offers of accommodation. Shades of the backpacker experience in Australia. Unlike backpackers' in Australia we were transported by moped rather than by minibus. A backpack, small rucksack and big passenger doesn't help a small moped getting up hills.
But we all made it and we were quite pleased at our lovely little Ibunda Bungalow that we had inadvertently haggeld for and agreed 25,000rp. Free breakfast and hot water. Cheap at half the price. As usual, everyone was called Ketut and we paid for one of them to do our washing. We also signed up for some Balinese dancing - they'll try to sell you anything here.
We then had a quiet stroll around the village. It was very touristy but still a lot more relaxed than Kuta. People tried to sell us dances rather than duff watches. The shops were all local arts and crafts. a few tape shops, money changers, restaurants and shops renting motorbikes. At 6pm we got into a battered old minbus with lots of fellow "arts aficionadoes" to see the dancing. Very BIFF, with lots of rhythmic dancing and a few wild costumes acting out a story. For an encore one of the dancers dressed as a horse and walked on the hot ashes of a fire. He didn't look too HP afterwards.
