All around Ubud in a day

We didn't really have an itinerary once we were in Ubud. But what I did know was we were meeting a friend of mine from Portland who very coincidentally was in Ubud with his 13 year old nephew for exactly the same weekend as us. We had arranged to stay at the same guesthouse so Saturday morning it was great to see a familiar face.



First on the list was to visit the Monkey Temple in the Monkey Forest - a Hindu site that is home to, go figure, a community of monkeys. I am not a fan of monkeys and like other monkeys I've met, these were rather aggressive and weren't above jumping on people who walked too close and grabbing food out of people's hands - as happened to a Japanese tourist who unwisely decided to eat a candy bar in view of a monkey. She shrieked, the monkey retreated a couple feet away, opened the package and chowed down.



Afterwards we headed back to the guesthouse and rented motorbikes (automatics since I am clutch-inept) and took a little tour around the surrounding area, stopping to visit a very old Hindu temple. It should be noted that in Bali there is always a ceremony going on. There are everyday ceremonies, weekly, monthly, yearly...everywhere are food, incense, and flower offerings in handmade palm leaf containers that are woven that morning. This particular weekend was a ceremony acknowledging the return of the ancestors (who had been visiting for ten days) to the spirit world with god. So besides all the tourists in the area, there was a lot of local activity as people were dressed for and celebrating this holiday along with coinciding temple festivals.

In the evening, we caught one of the temple shows. This one was based on a Hindu story and was "narrated" by several circles of men chanting with different characters coming in and out of the circle. The show was followed by a horse trance dance, where a man with a horse head costume (hard to describe) galloped over burning coconut shell coals while music played. We had ringside seats which was great for the show, but meant Sarah and I were liberally sprinkled with soot from the burning coconut shells. (Pictures to follow).

Also today - we found the shop and healer featured in the book Eat, Pray, Love. However, due to the festivals, though she greeted us, her shop wasn't open for lunch. Sarah got her picture taken with the "celeb", and we were on our way.