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Published: March 1st 2007
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our little temple
a little shrine in our garden in Kuta Hiya Guys,
How are you all? It's been a while since my last blog, I's love to say it's because I coudn't find an internet cafe but actually I've just been lazy! I might split it into two so you don't get too bored!
So last time I was in Kuta looking for a relaxing time on the beach.....turns out Kuta is not the place for that, it is very fun, but certainly not relaxing!! We arrived to a cocophany of people trying to sell us transport, sarongs, massage (I’d like to see them try when I have my backpack on!!) which then followed us to the beach. Because it is low season, everyone is a bit desperate to sell you something, so after promising Rita and Kathy that if we ever needed a massage or manicure, they would definitely be the people we would come and look for, we were left in peace for about 10 mintues before the next wave of people came! Emma did decide to hire a surf boars though and can proudly say that she surfed in Bali!
We soon decided that our little pool was the place to go for peace and
Bali waves
Em surfing on Kuta beach relaxation, but as it turns out we are nutter magnets and after about half an hour of blissful peace in our little buddhist garden, along came another one! This time in the form of a dirty old german man with snot hanging from his nose and other bits hanging from the bottom of his shorts! He managed to corner me and emma in the pool and started telling us how he loved indonesian women, he would love women like us, but we don’t like him, the indonesian women on the other hand….. poor girls is all I can say!! When he dissapeared to go and find his plastic boat ( seriously, think this guy was on day release!) we made a swift exit. Unfortunately not swiftly enough as he came back just as we were going into our room, gutted that he knew where we were staying, we spent the next three days with our door locked and doing james bond style exits from the place so he didn’t see us again!
From Kuta we headed north to Ubud, which is regarded as the Balinese cultural centre. It is a really beautiful little place, much quiter than Kuta and
Emma in our lovely little pool in Kuta
Just before we were rudely interrupted by snotty german man! surrounded by paddy fields. We satyed in a gorgeous little homestay just south of the centre with the loveliest family. The daughter is a famous Balinese dancer and is in all the papers, it was like staying with a celebrity! Typical us though, we didn’t realise this until our second day so we missed her perfoming at the palace on our first night!!
In Ubud there are lots of traditional temples and momunments depicting Buddha’s life. We went for a wander around to the elephant caves which have carvings and satues and hot springs where clensing ceremonies are performed, we however decided not to get a guide so the meaning of everything was lost on us slightly, only glistened by eavesdropping on other peoples tours- tight i know! From there we walked to some apparently very old rock carvings, I think we managed to walk past them the first time a we wandered off into the forest down slippery paths, not realising that no-one else was going that way. When we finally got to a dead end (big gushing river) we figured maybe we had gone the wrong way! After traipsing our way back up again, we finally found
Balinese offerings
These offerings are placed on the floor to ward off evil spirts and encourage good ones, so watch where you tread! the ‘ancient’ carvings, we hadn’t missed them at all on the way down, they had been som 'blatanlty just put there for the tourist' stone heads that we had laughed at on our way down! Though we were assured by a little old man with no teeth that one day there had been an earthquake and when the rock had fallen away, these sculptures had appeared, funny that!!
Luckily the other temples were more impressive, we went to one which housed a 2000 year old brass drum which they believed fell to the earth as the moon of beijing. They were preparing for their annual ceremony so there were really impressive golden statues of the gods being prepared, it apprently takes 3 months to prepare for the festival which will last 6 days, with lots of dancing, music and religious ceremonies, I’m quite dissapointed we are going to miss it.
From Ubud we also did a tour of Bali, we were joined by a very strange Japaese man who didn’t say more than 2 words for the entire day and raced around everything, impatiently waiting for us to finish! First we went to an art school where there
were some really impressively detailed work going on, very interesting to watch and nice to be able to chat to the artists as they worked but Emma kept getting hassled to buy things so we left a little quicker than we would have liked. From there we went to a rice field, really daft I know but I had no idea how rice was grown/made apart from the paddy field part so it was really interseting to see, I even took a little bit of rice home with me! Also, did not know you could get red and black rice, how little I know!! From there we went to Git Git to see some twin waterfalls and on to lake bedegul to see the temple, a cleanding ceremony was going on, very intersting to watch, we always see people with flowers behind there ears but didn’t really know the significance, aparently this is a sign of having been cleansed!
When we got back to Ubud we were invited to the birthday party of the daughter at the place we were staying, we were a little reluctant to go but it was such a good night, her friends band were
Ancient carvings!
Apparently ancient carvings, found after an earth quake?! playing and they were absolutley excellent, played really funky versions of random 90’s songs mixed with traditional balinese music, a good way to end our stay in Ubud!
Oh, nearly forgot, Ubud has shown me that aparently I have a fear of monkeys! They have a monkey forest there and if you walk down the road there are loads of them just hanging around looking shifty, I thought my fear was irrational until one of them tried to run off with my bag, cheeky git! I must admit, I screemed like such a girl! It wasn’t my fault, I thought it was a small child, I didn’t expect to see a monkey hanging from my arm!! Though to redeem myself I found I am quite a good cockroach catcher, in Kuta a couple had camped out in our bath (an outdoor bathroom seemed a good idea at the time!) and after a couple of girly moments I managed to pick them up and throw them in our garden. Not as easy as it sounds, they're quick little beggars and you really have to want to catch them, now honestly who wants to catch a cockroach?! so it did trake
Cleansing springs
used for cleansing ceremonies some coaxing with the bucket used to flush the toilet to get them to stay still long enough from me to grab them, but I was ultimately very proud!
Anyway, I'll leve it there for know, I'm sure you're all bored of my ramblings, the next one will be about Lombok, the Gilli islands and the worst journey of my life to see the Komodo dragons, bet you cant wait!!!
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nessie
non-member comment
Hi Read your JBR
Was really interested to find out the name of that Homestay you stayed at ?? Was it air conditioned ?? I am actually from another forum and just come over this by chance Nessie