Another side of Bali

I'm in now from the beach and decided to write a quick post about Nypei Day, which Will forgot to mention, and our few days in Ubud.

We arrived back in Sanur, after diving in Ahmed, the day before Nypei and there were tons of street celebrations already starting. I mean this town was shutting down before our eyes and it wasn't even 5 yet. We met up with our scuba friends and headed to the main parade. What an experience this was. It was packed with people from all over and we realized that the parade was also a contest. Different villages in Bali create a float of scary demon figures, which they think will scare away the mean spirits from the island, and parade them down the street to be judged. It got so crowded that everyone started pushing people around and this cute women with her children told us that her brother was presenting the first float, so Will offered to hold up her daughter so she could see. I have never seen a happier little girl, and all of these other kids started looking around asking why she got to sit on his shoulders. It was pretty funny. After watching a few floats we headed to dinner and then we were planning on going out for the New Years but by midnight everything was closed. So we headed back to the hotel prepared for our day of "rest" and being trapped in our hotel.

Alright first off our hotel was like a retirement community. I came down to the pool at 10 on Nypei day and every chair was already claimed by someone over 60. Pretty annoyed I sat down on the floor and looked around. Will had decided to lay in bed most of the day and sleep. We had been smart the day before and loaded up on snacks and beer for our lunch and dinner since our hotel only offered really expensive buffet meals. No thanks. When Will finally emerged from the room we started drinking and met a couple from Serbia. The guy, Tony, is an Editor-in-Chief at the biggest news paper in Belgrade, and his wife is a legal translator. They were some of the only young people so we immediately became friends. We decided to meet them at 8 at the bar to hang out since we were trapped in our hotel. When we opened our door to head down to the lobby we were surprised that everything in the hotel was dark. We were on the third floor and had to climb down the stairs in pure darkness. Alright this was so annoying and when we got to the bar we were told that it and everything else was closing. Annoyed again the Serbians invited us to their room for some beers and snacks. We had a lot of fun just relaxing with them that night.

Now to Ubud... What a cool little town it is. It reminded us of the San Miguel of Bali. It's known for it's art galleries, shopping, culture, and the monkey forest. Will and I arrived in Ubud after our long night out in Kuta and headed straight to bed for a nap. Well actually Will napped and I watched the movie the Queen, but that's besides the point. After a good rest we headed out into the town for some dinner. The great thing about where we were staying is that they had a free shuttle in to town and when you were ready to come back you could just call and they'd pick you up.

We were dropped off in the middle of town and were immediately heard traditional dance music. Every night in Ubud there are several different dance shows performed all around town that start at 7:30. By this time it was already 8 so we decided that we would check that out the next night. We walked around for awhile before getting stuck in a rain storm and rushed into a restaurant for dinner, then back to the hotel for a good nights rest.

The next morning we set out for the monkey forest. As you walk into the area there are monkeys running around everywhere. It really is like walking into a monkey cage at the zoo. There are three temples in the forest and as you walk to each one you are surrounded by monkeys running around, jumping in trees, or carrying around their babies. I have never seen so many baby monkeys clung to their mothers. Its actually pretty funny watching these babies hold on for dear life as their moms run around or climbs trees. I was pretty nervous around the monkeys because you couldn't tell what they were thinking and there were warnings around the forest about them jumping up and climbing on you. NO THANKS. I am not going to risk having one of those creatures bite me and give me monkey flu or some crazy disease like that. Will on the other hand was a lot more adventurous around them. The forest was really cool and there were still tons of decorations up from the Nypei day celebrations. As we were walking out we were watching this guy take pictures of this baby monkey and all of the sudden another monkey jumped out of a tree onto his back and wouldn't get off. I was ready to get on out of there at that point.

We walked back up the main road and stopped at over a dozen shops on the way. Will started getting pretty annoyed with my just looking and not buying attitude that he decided he wanted to get massages. We picked up a flier on our way to lunch and decided that we would make appointments for 6 so we could then head to the cultural dance after. After walking around in the market and buying a few souvenirs we were tired and Will needed a nap. At 5:45 we started getting ready to head back into town and that's when we realized that my camera was gone. Panic came over me and I wanted to hit Will for losing my camera. All I could remember was handing it to him on our way out of the monkey forest and he said he had no recollection of that at all. As we started replaying our afternoon we were able to only think of two places the camera could have fallen out of Will's pocket; the restaurant for lunch and a clothing store. On our way into town Will remembered testing out a hammock and we were immediately certain that's where the camera would have fallen out. We went to the other two places on our way to the hammock store and I was just praying that the Balienese guy didn't decide to sell that camera to the nearest electronics shop. We walked in and thankfully he had my camera. He found it in the hammock Will had tested out and later we realized the guy had tested my camera out too. Will was so thankful that the guy had the camera that he decided to buy the hammock, which I know he really wanted to buy anyway.

At that point we had missed our massage appointments and decided to just walk around a little before the dance performance. We got to the show early so we bought some beer at a convenience store and headed into the show. For the most part the show was cool, it did however, become a little repetitive towards the end. But the finale made up for it. This guy was pretending to be a horse or some kind of animal and was running over the fire and kicking all of the coals around. After the show his feet were completely black and the guy looked like he was in a little bit of pain.

The next day we woke up to a rain storm and headed to Nusa Dua where the rain continued on all night long. We are here in Nusa Dua now and having a great time at the beach. We haven't had rain but some partly sunny weather. More from Nusa Dua later...

Can't believe we only have 2 more nights until India.