Last Dinner

We were way off the beaten path here in East Bali but there is one 5 star restaurant/hotel. For our last night we went! I ordered baby pig and a lime tonic water. :) It was excellent! http://blog.kura2guide.com/10-hidden-beaches-in-bali/

Secret Local "White Sand Beach"

After leaving the dive shop on the bay we went in search of what people referred to as the "white sand beach." There are no roads but we headed up the hike anyways! We found paradise. Little shacks sold beer and had fresh catch they could cook for you. Cory looked at a  barracuda and ordered that with a few large beers. I "ordered" fried noodles. 

http://blog.kura2guide.com/10-hidden-beaches-in-bali/

Scuba

What a wonderful set of dives! There were huge schools of fish and bright purple and blue coral. Crystal Bay was my favorite dive! 

The Villa

A really beautiful three bedroom villa on a black sand beach just a few minutes drive from the scuba shop:

View from the balcony on my room-

Sitting at the pool:

Day to Laugh- Ubud City

After our experiences with amazing Hindu Temples we decided it was time for a tourist day! First up; Monkey Forest! 

You prpbably already know that I hate monkeys so why did I think this would be so great? Lol. So, we speed away from the villa with our driver who risks our lives at every turn. We have an hour drive to Ubud and four things on our agenda. First, Monkey Forest. Second, lunch at a secluded mountain resort. Third, rice paddy terraces and finally an "elephant cave." 

Right, back to our story...we are barreling down the road to Ubud when we slow to a stop. "Traffic jam." There are hundreds of people dressed in their finest walking the streets. Clearly, there is something religious going on. The driver tells us we have an hour so we walk around and I took a few pictures. 

I have lots of pictures because there was nothing to do! :) Things clear up and we start down the road at dangerous speeds again happy just to be moving. Monkey Forest looks to be a sanctuary of sorts so I get excited as we walk inside. After the first turn I hear a Australia girl about 30 years old screaming for her life. I speed up to help and realize she just thinks a baby monkey is really cute. We walk through this jungle past dozens of huge piles of potatoes and millions of Monkeys in the trees and on the ground. Cory decides to buy some bananas and immediately the monkeys crawl up his legs and up onto his shoulders to grap the bananas he is holding above his head. 

So we keep walking around and feeding the monkeys. 

I'm more or less just looking at the crazy trees. Then things start to get weird. Lol. We take a small path down a waterfall and there are a lot of asian tourists here. At one point a lady sees a baby monkey on a railing above the waterfall and goes towards it. The little one is generally interested and eventually more minkeys come. She tried to pet one and it tries to bite her back. Then out of nowhere she reaches out her hand and starts nudging a larger monkey on the shoulder who is sitting on the railing above the waterfall. Having almost fallen to its dealth, it turns around real fast and believes that Oscar pushed it starts jumping at him and then realized it was the asian women and goes at her! She screams and runs away.  What is up with these crazy tourists? I'm laughing at this whole situation the whole time! Keep in mind we have not seen any other tourists, only diving tourists, to this point in the trip. 

At one point, I came out of the bathroom and there was a crowd of people looking at something so I push to the front and there is Cory sitting down with a baby monkey curled up in his lap! :) 

Around another corner we see the Australian women again but this she is loving all the monkeys crawling all over her! They start peeing on her and in a weird accent she starts laughing! I had my fill of laughing at tourists at this point but I can't stop laughing! On the way out we pass by a spanish women running in circles with a monkey attached to her bag and her son is video taping the whole thing! 

We jump in the car and head to lunch. This was a place I picked out. It was situated in the mountains with an infinity pool overlooking a waterfall. There was an outdoor yoga studio and a gorgeous restaurant perched at the top of all of this. 

Cory and I got an apple, ginger, mint, balsamic salad that was to die for! This was out most expensive meal to date at $30 a piece! Yum yum! We took a swim in the pool and looked at the waterfall before leaving. The whole time I was thinking "Colin would love this place!"

So zoom off to our next destination laughing the whole way. Abud is filled with wooden cravings and wonderful furniture for purchasing along the road. We deive about 45 minutes to our destination at the terraced rice paddies. We pulled in and Oscar and Cory saw the stairs and immediately started saying "no rice paddies...no rice paddies" and the driver looked at us like "who are these idiots!" I really wanted to go but couldn't stop laughing about the whole situation. Cory and Oscar'a legs were killing them from the temple hike we did previously. I would have hiked this whole island without complaining but they were both sore. So the driver had to back the car into traffic on a busy road and try to turn around for our next destination called "elephant cave temple." 

We drove another 30minutes to get there and Oscar wanted to stay in the car but we convinced him to come. 

See the elephant cave? 

You can step inside the cave for like 20 feet and then need to turn around. So, of course, that brought on more laughs! I could see a trail going farther to a water lilly garden and waterfall so I put Cory and Oscar on a step near a vendor with cold fresh coconut water and started down the steps. 

Then we slept in the car all the way home! Funny day! 

Water Temple Day

Hi! We woke up the first morning at 8am and started a "temple day". Our first stop was Karangasem Water temple in Bali. It's a place you could walk for hours...here are some pictures. 

Next up: Tirta Gangga Park

Is it a water park for swimming, aquatic garden, or both? There are huge fountains and freshwater pools with koi. Some of the pools, without koi, have little animal fountains spitting out spring water where you can swim. It was so refreshing because the steps at the last temple in the beating sun were difficult. There are also really cool stepping stones so you can "walk" across the water. 

Really fun and refeshing! This, above, is the kids pool! :) 

It's not over yet! We showed up after some driving and lunch at Temple Tista or maybe Flempuyang-Luhur? All these temples were within a few hours drive. We got there around 3pm in the afternoon. Apparently our research wasn't very good because you needed to  wear a sarong but they had them to rent for tourists. We put them on and quickly learned it is a 2 hour hike up with just over 2,000 steps. So we went with our flip flops! :) Cory and Oscar were almost dying in the heat and humidity on the way up. I loved the jungle hike! If that wasn't bad enough; the daily rain clouds started to come in. At some point, Cory asked if he was steaming or if that was just the clouds! :)

There are four temples going up the moutain and each level bring you closer to the sacred holy water at the fourth and final temple at the top. The holy water is from the inside of tall mature bamboo stalks. Here is a picture of the first temple:

You can see the rain clouds forming. The funny part, and you can see this in the picture, is the heavest clouds are forming up the mountain into the distance. Of course, thats exactly where we were headed too. You actually can't even see the mountain behind these clouds! 

We kept going up more and more stairs. The clouds started to rain and eventually thunder was heard in the distance. With each step it seemed to get colder as the rain intensified. Even the monkeys decided not to both us and take shelt in the tops of trees. Here is a picture of the second temple:

Then the steps really got steep! This kept happening until the last temple at the top.

At this point we were getting cold because of the rain. We were starting to get to the top of the mountain now.

At the very top there was the tinest "temple" with two stands of bamboo and lots of monkeys rushing in from the trees and eating all the offerings people brought before the rain storm. Oddly enough, there were only four or five other people on this excursion at this time.  Kind of hilarous for all that work. I think Cory was almost dead at this point but he was in good spirits and then we started our desent and things got warm again and everything was great! 

My favorite picture is from inside the car on the way home. We passed two people on a mororbike with ballons trailing behind and I took a picture from the window. :)