13 May - South Bali to Ubud

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Up early this morning for a 9am bus exit, breakfast at 8am so I could use the wifi. Tasty omelette though. It was about an hours drive to the first temple of the day - Tanah Lot.

Tanah Lot is a 15th century temple on a rock in the ocean that has essentially been shaped or formed by the ocean. Pretty spectacular, waves crashing around I. Unfortunately it wasn't accessible due to the high tide but we were able to walk up a hill and around the surrounding area and take it all in. Apparently it is one of the seven sea temples around Bali - water being spiritual. It was overlooking the temple on the hill that I also had my first coconut of the trip.

From there it was on to the Royal Family temple, another pretty location and lovely lush green grass, dark coloured multi level pagoda structures. It was also the first temple we have been to where it was clearly signposted that pregnant or menstruating women were not allowed to enter the inner temple - apparently because they are unclean. There was also an area where they do cock fighting, but where the intention is the sacrifice rather than gambling,which is illegal in Bali. And we also saw one of the tiniest kittens I think I have ever seen!

From there it was on to Ubud where we went straight to get lunch, roast pork. It started bucketing down pretty much right on midday and when we jumped out of our car we basically ended up taking shelter in a temple for about half an hour until the rained slowed. Ubud is pretty famous for its roast pork - at 11am they have an entire pig which they then cut up and use for the test of the day.

Despite my reservations, the 'special' was quite tasty, even if I did decide not to eat the crackling and 'sausage' (intestines). From there it was check in at the hotel before the three of us (ie minus our guide) headed to the Monkey Forest.

It is basically this really dense area of jungle with three holy temples, inhabited by Balinese monkeys. The small monkeys are quite cute, the bigger ones not so much. One was pretty quick to jump onto Christina's back and backpack, and then tried to work out how to open up the zips. I tried to a avoid getting too close, think I may have a slight monkey phobia really. Cute from a distance.

Up in the cemetery temple area, there were lots of them playing on the water, including jumping from the trees and basically water bombing. And some were sitting playing with taps. And then they got territorial - I think some other monkeys might have come into someone's patch as they start to fight with each other. At one point we were pretty much surrounded too, like revenge of the monkeys or something! After spending a while with the monkeys it was Bintang time.

So we found a small little restaurant cafe and grabbed a local beer, before wandering further and eventually getting some dinner at a funky little restaurant sitting on cushions on the ground cross legged. Funnily enough though I ended up having a vege Indian plate rather than Indonesian or Balinese food, but there is plenty of time for that.

After dinner we wandered around looking at the shops. I could easily come back to Ubud. It is quaint, hippy, very relaxed vibe, funky shops, just an all round nice vibe. There are quite a few expats living there and is also the central point for Bali for paintings and a lot of artwork, which explains the hippy vibe. Ended up having a cocktail in a bar called Havana which was tasty and cheap before wandering back to the hotel for a fairly early evening.

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