Even the monkeys have their hands in your pockets

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Hey People,

So I'm finally here after a few days in a plane. I arrived in Ubud on Saturday the first, just two days after a bunch of you poor bastards took your boards. Ubud is the art capital of Bali, and with that probably all of Indonesia. Much of it is pretty amazing, especially the wood carving, Batik, and painting. Beyond that the sheer quantity is amazing. At first I thought no island the size of Bali could possible produce the volume of art supplied by this place, and then it all became clear. They are all artists. By saying this I want you to understand that I mean every man, woman, child, and even animal is an artist of one sort or another. Moto drivers, waiters, street cleaners, mechanics, and policemen all swing the brush around. And they love to show you their paintings of Shiva and the Hindi version of Romeo and Juliet, all very "unique and different" and yet somehow look like they each came from the same person.
Lynda and I went up to Bantur yesterday, the most accessible Volcano on the island. The mountain towered over a picturesque lake in the reminants of the old crater with fields of jet black and gold volcanic basalt strewn around at its base. Today we went to the Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud. The MFS is really just a section of jungle on the edge of Ubud with an old stone pathway and hundreds of Macay (sp?) monkeys running around fornicating, begging for bananas from whitey-tighty tourists, and, lacking bananas, taking whatever else of yours that doesn't happen to be strapped down. In my case, that was my sunglasses. One of the little bastards climbed up on my back when I sat down on a stone wall and grabbed the shades right off my face, but only after wrapping his tail around my shoulders and grabbing my face with his grubby little fingers. Look at the monkey in the tree and tell me if he doesn't look slightly cooler than the other monkeys on the block (if you look closely you can see some black Smiths in his lap). We got them back, but only after he danced around the trees laughing at me for 20+ minutes.
Tomorrow a.m. we head off for Lombok and then the Gilli islands for some snorkeling and chillign on some white sand beaches. Hope you guys are all thinking about me sitting on the sand eating red snapper with a bintang beer in my hand when you don your white coats on the 5th and the pimping begins. I know I'll be thinking about you all....

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Photos

This is what I do now
I sure am getting tired of drinking coffee and relaxing all the time