Bunnygoespop in Bali part II

Continued from Bali part I..

Day 6-7: Ubud, some culture and many monkeys

Ubud was..

ONE GIANT AMUSEMENT PARK!

You can go watch a dance show. You can feel paddy grow beneath your feet. You can look at craftsmen working. You can watch batiq prints dry. You can become an expert in balinese cooking. Or you could get a crash course in wood carving.

OK. I actually did that. It was pretty cool.

My class was in a very idyllic countryside location. They served us tea with cinammon sticks (as a stirrer) and palm sugar syrup and banana fritters with funny little hats.

I am not complaining…..but wood carving is really hard. 

Our teacher, who has been wood carving since ~40 years, had to come to my rescue.

Why did I have to choose such a difficult target? Because we were in Ubud. Ubud = monkey, duh.

Finally. My only real contribution was polishing this guy well. Overall lesson: the process of wood carving is the opposite of making a painting. Think about it.

Meanwhile, some other monkeys took a walk through these fabled paddy fields.

That shade of green! Reminded us of Munnar!

Day 7: time for some real monkeys

Some pictures from the monkey forest by a very talented monkey.

Please mom please? 😍

Jai Hanuman below:

just a little yawnIt is incredible how human like they are.

I always thought the name, Bali comes from the monkey king in the Hindu text, Ramayana. I asked a local. He seemed a bit offended. 😀

(They have an entirely different story on the origin of the name, Bali).

Despite the hundreds of tourists (or thousands, and that too in “low season”), Ubud still has some authencity left in it.

This was a temple where they were uber strict about the dress code. Below was the airbnb where we were staying. This house is 6 generations old! She as well.

Then there was this nice Saraswati temple where there are dance shows in the evenings. 

These lotus leaves up close. So, do you remember why do water droplets stick like this on the surface? Read this amazing book by Dr. Mudrika Khandelwal (link to Murgi’s book) to know why.

We also popped in to the Agung rai museum and their collection is pretty nice. But the museum was empty!

Then there were all these designer cafes and boutiques.

More of an amusement park sort of feeling!

There was one little unpretentious place, tucked away in a side lane. But oh it is worth finding it. Warung Susma. Their menu is a piece of cardboard. Susma is the cook, the bartender, and the waitress. Susma is pretty cool.

<picture of warung susma>

All in all these two days in Ubud felt like a waste when we could be next to sea. Monkeys are cool but fish are cooler. We headed off to Pemuteran (part III).

Monkeys are cool but fish are cooler.

Day 8: On our way from Ubud to Pemuteran

On the way, there were coffee plantations, where we did a coffee and tea/infusions tasting  tour. One of the saleswomen then convinced us to buy some ridiculously priced Luwak coffee.

Turns out they feed these coffee berries to the Luwaks kept in cages! Easy poo poo easy money.

Then we drove to Ulun danu Beratan temple, which is a nice temple in the lake and stuff.

More from the temple area.

Then we made a stop at the Twin lakes panaroma point where one can see both the lakes in one view. Left eye on Lake Buyan, right eye on Lake Tamblingan.

 

Then after watching hectares and hectares of cloves (no good pictures, just looked like a forest), we hiked down to the Munduk waterfalls, which was pretty awesome actually. 

Finally reached Pemuteran. Pemuteran was super quiet. More in part III.

Much monkey love, xo