monkeying about monday

Right, so back to Monday and day 1 proper of the holiday. Sal had, as Sal does, planned the whole day. In short we were off to Ubud and surrounds to visit the rice fields terraces and the monkey sanctuary and maybe do a spot of shopping.

The same taxi driver that collected us from the airport and whose name I really should commit to memory before we leave, arrived at 07:30 to take drive us to the rice terraces. It was a reasonably long drive and I spent most of it looking out of the window and trying to get a feel for some more-real-than-Seminyak Bali and chatting with the driver. The girls in the back battered mum with questions, H using "how many minutes until we get there?" like a punctuation mark.

We stopped at Canggu...well, we didn't because this was a coffee stop the driver thought would be nice but which deviated from Sal's plan, so rather than stop we did  a lap of the car park and kept going. Our driver (fuck, I feel SO rude not being able to use his name) had worked in the rice fields until 2004, earning $2-3 day. That is doing it tough. As we passed rice he explained that the ducks in the fields are also farmed; they keep bugs down while they roam about and then become my dinner. Yes, there are snakes, and yes, some of them are dangerous. But they help control the rats. And although there are machines that can now harvest rice he (and his wide, who still works the fields) used hand tools.

Sal had made the right decision to leave early so we could avoid most of the traffic. The roads were a little clearer around our part of town as a lot of the shop keepers are Muslim and Monday was a public holiday for the end of Ramadan. We had the obligatory - and seemingly worldwide - conversation about Muslims. In Bali everyone gets on, but on Lombok there is trouble, why can't they live together yadda yadda yadda. I wonder if I'll live long enough to see who gets to share the ire next?

Anyway, we got to the rice terraces and they were kinda cool in a working but rather touristy way. Nothing wrong with that though, just an observation. Hell, if I was on the slim margins that are found here I'd be wanting the tourist dollar. We wandered around after the kids had a go on a massive swing that was strung between a couple of palm trees and swung out over the terraces. An interesting and pretty place.

We got lost. The signage was not great, but rather than retrace our steps we decided to complete a loop of the site and after following a couple of locals up a set of steps that seemed like the path - it was a path - we ended up on a road. The old guy that had been carrying coconuts up the path seemed to indicate that we should walk down the road and we did until we realised we were lost and Sal phoned for help.

TD came to rescue us. (No, calling the taxi driver TD did not make me feel better about not knowing his name...) We were a bit sweaty - what with the terraces and the hills - and by the time we were rescued we were comically close to where we'd started our walk. Rather than head back we decided to move on to a next stop that - arrrgghh! - was a bit unplanned. I say a bit because we wanted a coffee (natch) but stopping at a Kopi Luwak place was not part of the main plan. Before heading off TD placed the large(dead) spider that had dropped on his car into the offering atop his dash. Good luck apparently. I think it may be a banana spider, bit I'm not sure. Ah-ha, actually nephalia pilipes, a type of golden orb weaver.

The coffee stop was good. At a small coffee plantation on the main road, sitting atop a terrace. A good place, the have a couple if civit cats, a guide explains the process and they have some people roasting and grinding the coffee in the traditional manner. Then we had a free tasting of the coffee, several others and a load of herbal teas while looking out over the terraces. I spent some of the time trying to figure out people's obsession with placing themselves in all manner of pouty poses in their pictures. I guess it is a form of self expression, but it seems so so self absorbed and vacuous, people placing more stock in themselves being in a picture than enjoying and sharing the place itself? Dunno, I'm just a grumpy old bastard. But while I am having a whinge, I am also fed up with having to compose my pictures to avoid having your fucking drone in my shot. Ahem, moving on...

I like all the teas and all the coffee apart from the straight Balinese. The luwak was good though. Having had no hard sell we went to the shop and purchased some teas and it is only now, as I type this, that I realise that may come to haunt us when we get to customs in Sydney at sill o clock on Sunday morning. Ah well.

And so to the monkey forest, the main attraction for Monday. Another place that is firmly on the tourist trail and if you want to low down on it then you can just click the link rather than me regurgitate. We did not spend a long time there. It is another peaceful place and the monkeys - well looked after - are all over the place and mostly unconcerned by the tourists other than to cast a watchful eye over us in case we might have some food. We did a fairly casual lap, I took  handful of pictures and we headed back t the car park. Yep, I guess I should spend more time describing it, but hey, I'm getting a bit wordy here already.

It was only lunchtime now and TD took us back into Ubud and suggested the suckling pig at Ibu Oka which I rate more highly than trip advisor. - a good call, solid local fare and cheap. The traffic was a bit chaotic in Ubud so when Sal called TD I had an opportunity to do a quick lap of the palace, click off a few pictures and get frustrated - again - at people plonking themselves front and centre in front of their, and every one else's pictures. I'm sure your friends already know what you look like, how about use more of the frame for, oh, I don't know, the temple gates? Grrr....ahem...

Right, I'm at the end of my blogging patience and the rest of the day was a stop at a silver jewelry making place and a dip in the pool before dinner and bed.

Woo-hoo! I'm up to date!