Cleansing ritual and blessing

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So after a brief bite to eat at the hotel (did I mention that the breakfast buffet is fabulous?!) We (Jerri, Jennifer, Suzie and myself) met up with Wayan our driver for the day.
(I'm going to add details to this blog later but wanted to give you the gist of our day) We drove to Ubud and then a little bit further to see our first temple which was Besakin Temple (also called the Spiritual Journey temple). We decided to buy sarongs at one of the shops right there because otherwise we would need to rent one at the temple and we knew we'd be going to more than one temple that day. (You have to either wear pants or a sarong to cover your legs when entering a temple). So after wandering down the street, paying the admission fee we were surrounded by spectacular countryside. Our first vision of rice paddies as we walked along to the temple. It was really hot and somehow walking DOWN to the temple was so much easier than walking back up!
We then drove onto Tirta Empol in Tampakspring (?) This is where we put our swimming suits on and then rented a wet sarong (so that we didn't have wet clothes in the van later) and got into this pool where there were spouts of spring water pouring out into the pool You're suppose to take in the incense, then douse yourself with water 3 times, cross your arms....I'm not quite sure what exactly we were suppose to be doing, I was just following the people in front of me. It was actually really amazing experience. Afterwards we went up to the temple where there was a holy man saying prayers. We then sat on the ground with the some other people, performed the prayers with them and the holy man came along and blessed us.
Then it was onto the monkey forest. we had heard bad things about how aggressive the monkeys can be they actually were fine as long as you weren't feeding them. We saw a couple of brand new monkeys that were clinging to their mothers.
Then it was onto the Dirty Duck Diner for lunch which of course was spectacular.
Onto shopping within Ubud. The heat and humidity were too much to bear!
Drove back to the hotel after being with the driver for 10 hours. We're going to finish up with Ubud on Monday and see Ketel Liyer the medicine man.

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