Ubud

I got to Ubud in time for lunch after more tiresome negotiations for transport, I'm sure I was ripped off but I payed a lot less than the tourist bus. On the way we passed a poster for an up coming music festival. As well as 4WD and XXX (who looked like boy-bands from their pictures) there was "also perform: scared of bums". Scared of bums then. Straight from the top drawer of band-naming, because aren't we all, in our own way, a little, scared of bums? In Ubud I found another nice cheapo place to stay with free breakfast and a cheapo place for lunch and then for a wander through the town to the Monkey forest.

As you might expect the monkey forest was full of monkeys, aggressive little blighters who would try to nick anything vaguely edible, but I managed to hold them off on an attempt for my water bottle. Did feel a bit dodgy among the big troupes of them, but it was a nice setting with some little temples, which had interesting statues on them (a very different style than I'd got used to in most of India and SE Asia). Then I went for a walk, heading vaguely towards the "Elephant Cave" but soon realised I was not very comfortable in the sun and was getting a bit irritated to headed back to my room. The town itself is quite pleasant with lots of nice (expensive) restaurants and shops (I didn't make a purchase from the "Cak" art store as it looked -by name and -by nature). On the second day I didn't do much again except go to a museum and in the evening I went to see a Balinese dance show. These were both very good. In the dance show it was nice to hear the full gamelan orchestra let rip as well, as I'd just heard the same repetitive temple music again and again all over Indonesia. The next day I left on a minibus to Kuta at 1030am, and again it really poured down in the morning, so I didn't bother making a trip to the market I'd thought about.

Photos:

This should be a caption competition.

One of several really freaky statues.

Balinese Dancer.