Final Days in Bali

IIOn Friday morning, Made, the guide/driver, picked me up for our trip to the most famous temple on Bali, Tanah Lot.  On our way, we stopped at this large temple owned by the Royal Family.  

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The above is a great example of a Temple Activity Center which is rebuilt as needed with this massive thatched roof.  Here, at each Temple, they have a cock fight every 210 days.  Yes, cock fighting is 

legal here but only for religious purposes.  No betting is allowed.  The Hindu considered the losing cock the victor as he gave his life for the religion.

The above is Tanah Lot.  It is an incredible sight as it is right off the beautiful rocky shoreline.  Unfortunately, it is now mainly a tourist trap. 

Made and me.

A couple of the Ogoh Ogoh we saw along the way.  We also stopped at perhaps the most scenic stop in all of Bali for rice terraces.

Finally on Saturday, we stopped at yet another temple.  The water here, according to legend, used to be posonious.  But due to divine intervention, it was made pure.  Now pilgrims come from all around for the water.  Note that each water 'faucet', is supposed to be good for difference purposes from diseases to purifying the house and the dead.   Yes, people can carry the water home with them.

For Sunday, I took the Green Bike Tour.  It was the number one rated bike tour in the area which says a lot as there must be about 20!  The nice thing is they limit the number of riders to a maximum of 6.  We had 5 in my tour - along with two guides.  The other tourists were 3 young people from Singapore and a lady from Florida who is just finishing up 6 months on the road from Europe and SW Asia!  There is really unusual for an American - other than those of college age!

The tour drove us up a volcano so most of the riding was downhill so not a whole lot of exercise involved.  On the drive up we stopped at a coffee ‘plantation’.  This is really a tourist trap place where they sell coffees and spices grown elsewhere on Bali and teas grown somewhere outside of Bali.  Their claim to fame to the kopi luwak coffee.  This is the coffee that has been digested by the civet cat.  Here in Indonesia, they keep these cats in cages and feed them the coffee.  Several of the woman on the tour took exception to having these wild cats in cages so the coffee producer can make a quick buck.  Any way, the tour provided us a couple banana pancakes here as well as a sample of all the coffees and teas they sell.

Once we got on the bikes, we still made several stops.  The most interesting one was at a local family house in one of the villages.  Here we got to see the mother making the baskets as the father watched tv!  After the mother worked on the baskets, she started making the traditional Hindu sacrifice tray of flowers and dried plants which they will burn with incense.  These are done several times a day.  We got to try our skill at this art and here is my meager product:

Monday had me walking about the town of Ubud again.  First stop was the Antonio Blanco Museum.  For those of you like me and never heard of Mr. Blanco, he was a painter from Spain that came to Bali and became famous painting topless Balinese women.  I guess if was a tough job but someone had to do it!  Whatever, Blanco died in 1999 right before this grand museum was opened.  

It was an interesting museum but way overpriced by local standards.

Then I saw Ubud’s famous Monkey Forest.  This was a very nice woods and forest area that has over 600 monkeys for our amusement - or our we there for the monkeys amusement?  It is hard to tell.

To end the day, I stopped for a stick massage.  Bali is known for their massages and I have liked the stick foot massages I've had in the past.  (It feels so good when they stop!). But this guy was different.  Not only did he work on my feet but also my hands, arms and shins with his stick.  As a result, now my arms are black and blue which he insisted is a good thing as my veins were ‘clogged’.  Although I am convinced the stick is a good technique for the feet I seriously doubt benefits for other parts of the body!.