15 May - Ubud to Lovina

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First stop today after breakfast was a village temple. We had to hire sarongs, which is a fantastic look on me (I can never pull that sort of thing off). The temple was small but pretty and intricate. Some impressive offerings too.

Then it was on to an example of a traditional Balinese house. Essentially they are all different little houses, one each for the children, the parents, an outdoor kitchen and so on. They also have their own small temple in each house as well as an area in the middle with a bed. When I asked what it was, I found out that that is where they put people once they die before the bury them. Eww. We also visited a silver smith and looked in their store. So many pretty things with no prices and I wasn't game to ask how much, so had to leave before I bought unnecessary jewelry.

From there we went to a coffee place to find out about Luwak coffee. Is is really expensive coffee, and is the beans of coffee once they have been eaten and excreted by the Luwak, an Asian 'cat'. They eat the coffee berries and then when being digested, they ferment, add flavor and are then collected by the farmers. Is it thought that the process improves the coffee through both selection and digestion - ie/ the cats also chose the better beans. Needless to say, being a non coffee drinker

I didn't try it myself, nor the teas we had free tasting of (even though I have been drinking tea with breakfast some mornings). While we were there we also wandered through their garden looking at herbs and spices, before the obligatory shop visit and then off to lunch. I had a tasty veg dish - which my coke cost nearly as much as.

Then it was on to the floating temple, when it started to rain. Well, after all, it was after lunch. So a very quick visit there, even though it was a stunning temple, before hopping back in the van.

We were also supposed to be going via a waterfall this afternoon but given the torrential downpour and the fact that there was a walk to the waterfall involved, we skipped it. Instead we arrived in Lovina, on the north coast of Bali on the beach, at this lovely little resort.

Had a nap before getting up hoping the rain would have stopped and it hadn't. So the three of us sat around fairly bored using the free but slow wifi and reading before making our way down to the beach to watch the sunset.

It was still drizzling when we headed to dinner so the tour guide organized the driver to drop us into town and we went to a place on the water for dinner. Overpriced seafood which was pretty average really. Then it was to a bar across the road to watch some live music, western songs sung by locals, before we walked back to the resort as it had finally stopped raining.

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