Thursday 12th February
We took it easy again today as tomorrow we had booked another tour with Tagel's nephew and Rob hoped to walk up mount Agung at the weekend, so we spent another day chilling in Ubud. We woke up a little late again and ate nasi goreng and fruit for breakfast. The nasi goreng was super tasty, Rob loved it!
This morning we took the long way to Ubud, wandering through the back streets we saw a set of communal showers near the river and a giant rubbish pile. It is a shame as this beautiful island is being to destroyed by rubbish! I guess they don't have the recycling or disposal facilities in some places. The large volume of tourist definitely contributes to the volume of waste but then many people here rely on tourism for their income, so everything goes round in big circle. :(
 |
| Tamarind sensation! |
It must have taken us an hour to get into Ubud when it should have only taken us around fifteen minutes if we had gone the usual way along the main street. By this time I was super hot and very frustrated so we stopped at Kafe for a drink and a cool down. I chose the tamarind sensation and Rob had a cranberry Juice. The tamarind sensation had so many passion fruit seeds in that I struggled to swallow them and ended up spilling the majority of my drink on my lap. Oh well it was a bit embarrassing but I'll get over it.
 |
| Painted baby chickens! |
After we finished we continued wandering around Ubud and walked all the way to the other side of town to the Elephant Cafe. This cafe was a bit out of the way and didn't look that impressive from the road, as in order to get to it you need to walk past some run down shops and and enter the car park of a hotel. The cafe can be found at the bottom of this car park. But once you are inside its quite nice and has a great view of the fields and forest along the Campuhan ridge. So naturally we sat as close as we could to the view. Whilst we were there the sky became very dark and a storm began. We could hear thunder and lightening in the distance, which quickly became much closer and it had not yet begun to rain but we could both tell that it soon would. In the meantime we enjoyed some lunch, rice paper rolls with peanut sauce. They were delicious and very filling considering they were meant as a snack!
 |
| View from the elephant cafe. |
We sat watching the view for a while, as right outside the window squirrels were playing n the trees, running and jumping. A giant black and yellow spider had also made a massive web nearby, so we watched it patrolling its web. I had never seen a spider that big before, it was huge!
Afterwards we made our way across the road to the supermarket and bought gifts for family. We originally went in for fruit but didn't end up purchasing any. Oh well, we can get some from the market another time! We weren't in the supermarket very long but when we came out the rain was torrential! So, we went back inside and looked at handbags. Normally I wouldn't mind this but I didn't want to stay in the supermarket! I hate spending my holidays in the shops! So we braved the rain and ran down the hill to Clear Cafe. Rob was slipping everywhere in his flipflops, I was very surprised he didn't fall! We hid in here for the rest of the afternoon, drinking hot chocolates, green teas and iced coffees. It was great sitting in the tree tops watching the rain drops. We got some awesome photos of the temple below and sat watching the incense burner make pretty patterns with the smoke.
 |
| Swirly! |
After a while I got a little hungry and ordered a slice of raw chocolate pie. The dessert that arrived was a gigantic slice of frozen cake. It was quite different to what I had anticipated and just tasted like ice cream. The slice was far to big for me to eat alone and I couldn't finish it, so Rob ate the rest.
 |
| Flowers. |
Earlier in the week Tagel had told us about the ceremonies going on at the temples of Ubud. So tonight was the night we would actually attend one, after failing a few days ago. We watched the parade of people going to temple from the terrace of Nomad, well Rob ran down to the street to take photographs, I think he got some good ones. After he we return we ate our meal and I got some beautiful palm sugar pancakes for dessert. They were so moreish and coconuty! I could have eaten so many more! :(
Nomad is a fairly large restaurant over two floors and upon entering the restaurant you are presented with a pretty yellow and white flower to wear behind your ear. Rob looked so beautiful with his, it was a shame he didn't wear it for long! :( However, the best part about the restaurant was the amount of little geckos scurrying around on the ceiling of the terrace. So cute! :)
 |
| Green palm sugar pancakes! Yum! |
We arrived at the temple shortly after 9 pm and people were already finding seats near the stage. After standing around for a bit we followed suit and sat on the floor to get a good position to watch the show. We had no idea when it was due to start we just hoped that it would start soon, as Rob can't sit on the floor very well. But I suppose after about 40 minute music began playing and we watched the dance of the black magic man with long finger nails, it was kind of creepy and the music was almost hypnotic. Afterwards there was a dance of a lion and good magic. I didn't get very many good pictures but rob got some awesome shots with his zoom lens. Unfortunately, by the time it was 11 pm we were both no longer comfortable on the floor so we left and headed back to the hotel to get some sleep, as we will have to be up earlier tomorrow.
 |
| Children watching the show! |
When we got back home something weird was going on at our hotel. Our hotel owner had some guests and they were all in ceremonial clothing with two of them holding a white chicken over a hole in the ground. I think they were sacrificing it, but I didn't ask and Rob didn't even notice!
 |
| The Ceremony |
No comments:
Post a Comment