Saturday March 28 - Ubud, Kintamanti and Uluwatu

Today was the busiest day we've had and will have for the whole trip. We saw much of Bali, and had several unique experiences along the way. Many of the places we visited sound like they are straight from a Dr. Seuss book - Ubud, Tampaksiring, Kintamani and Uluwatu.

After a quick breakfast, we loaded into the car with Eddie and took the 90 minute ride to Ubud (ew-bewd). Ubud is famous for its Monkey Forest. I was picturing something along the lines of the monkey walk we have at the Phoenix zoo where little monkeys the size of your fist jump from tree to tree in an open environment. Not so at Ubud. These monkeys are the size of small dogs and aggressive! We paid the nominal entry fee for tourists (our driver did not have to pay) and also bought a few bunches of bananas. Those monkeys saw us coming and rushed towards us. Initially, they would stop, stand up, and put out their hands. If I didn't put something in it fast enough, they would pull at my shorts. One even continued to do so as I walked away from it. Others got even bolder. One rushed up and tried to take a whole bunch from me instead of just a single banana. Another jumped on my wife's shoulder and tried to pull her bag away. If our driver had not rushed to her aid and swatted at the monkey with a thin stick (like a switch), the monkey would have run off with her purse - and our cameras, money, passports, etc.

The monkeys are all sacred at the particular temple in this forest. Monkeys are one of the manifestations of one of the Hindu gods, and they are worshipped at this temple. The temple itself is shrouded by the forest canopy. Very little sunlight reaches the temple grounds, which is mostly moss covered. Several of the worshippers brought offerings for the monkeys while we were there, and the large offerings (feedings) resulted both in feeding frenzies and fights. My daughter was very nervous when they began fighting. When they weren't fighting each other, trying to steal purses, or rip the dress off of other women (my driver was the hero during that attack, too), they could be quite docile. Another family had a monkey climb up on their daughter's shoulder and begin grooming her hair. Great experience.

On the walk back to the car we stopped in to some of the shops which line the streets. There is no such thing as a fixed price in these shops, so haggling is a requirement of shopping. I don't think we got a good deal on the clothes - 4 shirts for $20, and I know we got a great deal on the paintings. My daughter found three paintings she really liked. When I asked the shop keeper how much, she said 200,000 IDR ($20) each. I told her I was willing to pay 25,000 IDR ($2.50) each. The boldest price cut I've ever made. She said no way, one is 200,000, but she was willing to offer all three for 400,000. I told her 75,000 for the set was all I was willing to do. When she came down to 300,000 for the set, I knew I had her - she was coming down faster than I was going up (I wasn't moving). I said 100,000 for the set and that was my final offer. She came down to 200,000 - a full 2/3 cheaper than her initial price. At that point, I thanked her for her time and had everyone leave the shop. I was, intentionally, the last to leave, and before my second foot could leave her floor, she said "okay, 100,000". She then started cursing me in Bahasa under her breath. My Bahasa has much improved over the last few days, so I know the gist of her comments were "Americans! They have all that money and are stingy with it!" She didn't smile at me when she thanked me for my purchase. That's how I know I got a great deal.

I originally asked my driver to help haggle so that I would get the local price, not the "bule" price. That didn't work so great. He indicated the quality wasn't very good. I agreed, but did not want to get high quality as a gift for my daughter. After we left that shop, he took us to "Semal Kuning", an artist's compound and school just outside of Ubud. The paintings here were spectacular and of extremely high quality. These are the types of paintings you would expect to see in the finest galleries in Sedona. One of the artists was our tour guide and was there to offer assistance on a purchase. When my wife asked what paintings cost, he said "first you must find one that you actually like, then we can worry about what things cost - anything is possible". In other words, prepare to haggle. I've always wanted to begin a high-quality art collection and invest in some fine artwork. I took this opportunity to do so and spent more an art than I ever have. We bought 5 paintings - 2 small ones with frames, 2 medium size with frames, and, the piece that will become a talking point in our house, a 5 foot by 3 foot canvas of a Balinese farming scene. Because of what we actually paid, I'm not going to provide the actual pricing details. What I will say is that I bought all 5 for less than half the quoted price of the large one (others there were "advising" us that they were able to buy their pieces at half the quoted price), or 64% off the list price. I probably could have done better, but I am happy with what we paid. We also ended up buying one of the paintings by the person showing us around. He was pleased with that.

It was only 10:30 in the morning after we had made our art purchase. I didn't have anything else in mind to do other than see a fire-dance ceremony - Kecak (kuh-chahk) - at sunset. It was also too early for lunch. Our driver recommended he take us to Kintamanti. He said it was the "best view in Bali". We - the happy tourists - had our camera's ready and a full day with no plans, so we willing obliged his recommenation. The trip from Ubud to Kintamanti was about 40 minutes. We drove through several villages along the way. The most memorable was the village of Tempaksiring (tum-pahk-see-ring). The Nyepi holiday that all of Bali celebrated on Thursday continues with several more days of festivities, terminating on Sunday. As we drove through Tempaksiring, the processions I had thought we would see at Kuta beach were walking through the streets of this much smaller village. The entire town dressed in bright white shirts and black, red, and white checkered skirts. A few were dressed in a dragon costume - much like you see during a Chinese New Year celebration - and others played musical instruments. We drove past it and took as many pictures as we could.

When we arrived at Kintamanti, it was not, as I had expected, a cliff overlooking the ocean, or even a magnificent view of the several plateaus of rice patties we passed on our way up. Kintamanti was the top of Bali's active volcano! The air at the top was 15-20 degrees cooler than at sea-level, so I'm sure we had climbed at least 5,000 feet. Inside the volcano was a lake, the volcano's newly forming cone, and blackened earth obviously created from its most recent eruption. Amazingly, there was also hundreds of buildings along the lake shore, and the restaurant we ate lunch at hung on the outer wall of the original caldera, giving us a spectacular view of the volcano floor. Thankfully, we did not see any lava flows or feel any pre-eruption tremblors. It was still an amazing experience and the closest I've ever been to an active volcano.

We were done with lunch around 2 PM - still 4 hours to kill. We drove back to another art gallery in Ubud - this one specializing in wood carvings. I'm glad we went to the paintings first, or I would have spent far too much money on wood carvings that I would have had to figure out how to ship to our new home when I don't know my local address. When we return to Bali, I'm sure we will return to this gallery and buy more than we did - a small Buddha statue and a Mattisse-esque man-woman embracing carving. The most impressive carvings they had were wood sconces with elaborate scenes - one of them being the Last Supper. No haggling at this shop, everything was fixed price...though I did try.

We finished there at 3 PM, and had a 2 hour drive to Uluwatu to see the Kecak ceremony at sunset. Uluwatu was far more than I had expected - both in terms of the experience and the cost. I had to pay three times - once to park, once to enter the temple grounds, and once to see the ceremony. Based on what I paid, and the 540 people I estimated attended the ceremony, this site makes $20,000 a day from tourists. Not bad, and well worth the expense.

I thought Uluwatu was going to be a casual beach environment, probably a number of tourist trap shops, where we would watch the fire-dance display. It turned out to be an amazing large temple, built on cliffs at the western end of Bali. When I bought tickets to the temple grounds, they provided everyone with a yellow belt, and my wife and I with a skirt to wear because our shorts were not modest enough (mine were just above my knee cap), and we had to wear covering to our mid-calf to show respect to the gods. Once again, monkeys had a large presence at this temple, and these guys were far more aggressive. Unlike at Ubud, signs here warned us to protect our belongings - glasses, caps, cameras. As we climbed the steps to the top of the temple, we encountered monkeys with water bottles they had obviously snatched from a tourist. At the top of the temple, we watched as a monkey reached out and grabbed a hair scrunchy right off a woman's head, removing her pony-tail. It then proceeded to try and eat it, though it did not look as if it was enjoying the taste. As we descended the steps to head to the seating area for the ceremony, we heard another guy screaming and chasing a monkey who had jumped out of the trees and snatched his sunglasses from the top of his head and ran to another tree where it proceeded to try on the glasses first, and then, once again, try to eat them. The walk from the temple to where they held the ceremony was a narrow walkway at the edge of the cliff. Monkeys sat on the wall on the right side and hung from the trees on the left. The walk was both comical and unnerving. As you passed each monkey, you were glad you were not the first to pass by. The first monkey was wearing a chewed up baseball cap. The second monkey had another hair-scrunchy. The third monkey was trying on an elastic head-band and having a tough time with it.

The Kecak ceremony is the retelling of one of the stories of the Ramayana. The beautiful "Sinta" is captured, through trickery, by the evil Monkey King. Her husband sends the White Monkey to rescue her. The story begins by a group of 42 men (usually 72, but I only counted 42) singing and chanting in a circle around a statue with several flames. They sing and chant rhythmically for a long time. Then, the story is told through interpretive dance while the men continue singing and chanting. At the end of the story, they set big piles of long grasses on fire and the white monkey kicks them, barefoot, into the air. It's really quite spectacular, though the chanting and dancing leading up to it gets quite monotonous and, dare I say, boring. The Kecak ceremony ended at 7 PM, and we were back at the hotel by 8 PM. My daughter and I went for a late swim while my wife and her mother went and bought pizza for dinner at the Pizza Hut at the entrance to our hotel.

We only have 2 more full days in Bali, and a full morning. We will likely spend the rest of our time lounging at either the beach of the pool. These last two days have been very busy and very exhausting. Time to relax again.