Day 13: Tour of Bali

The third day in Ubud we hired the hotel driver, Ketut, to take us around the center of the island.  But first, we went for a run along the 'jogging track' just outside of town.  It was so wonderful to get away from the motorbikes and instead run between some peaceful terraced rice paddies.

Heading down to the 'jogging track'

 

 

There was a little stone shrine at the corner of almost every rice paddy.  The Balinese are very religious--they believe everything has a spirit, including each paddy, river, and field--and spend a large portion of the day praying and giving offerings. 

 

 

The first stop of the tour was the Elephant Cave, Goa, Gojah.  Since many of the places we visited were religious sights, we often had to rent sarongs to wear.  Also, for some reason, menstruating women were usually prohibited from entering these places.  I wonder how they check for this sort of thing?

Just outside the Elephant Cave

The popular Elephant Cave (probably named for the statue of the god Ganesha inside)

Inside were two small alters with sarong-wearing phallic symbols

We had a brief stop at the Fallen Moon Temple (Pejeng).  It was difficult to see through the bamboo scaffolding, but this is a 2 meter long drum, the largest single-piece cast drum in the world, and is between 1000 and 2000 years old.

Bundles of coconut husk

At the petrol station

On the way to the Rocky Temple, Gunung Kawi

We had to walk down a deep valley to reach the Rocky Temple

What's with the mammoths?

This well-dressed statue is ready to hit the town

The 11th century temple consisted of 10 gigantic shrines carved into the cliff face

Chickens munching on the morning's offerings

Next was a stop at the fascinating Holy Spring Temple (Tampak Siring).  This spring is very sacred and the Balinese come from miles around to bathe in it.

Holy Spring Temple

We stopped for a good view of the volcano Gunung Batur and the crater lake Danau Batur

One of my favorite stops on the tour was at an agrotourismo.  This organic plantation grew and sold its own coffee, cocoa, and spices. 

Super neat vanilla plant

Roasting their own coffee beans

Cocoa plant

Of course it began to monsoon, so we found shelter and sampled tea, coffee, and chocolate

The chicken had the same idea as us!

The agrotourismo's big specialty was luwak coffee.  The beans come from a civet, a cat-like animal that eats coffee beans, digests them, then poops them out whole.  The pooped coffee is collected, cleaned, roasted, and drank.  Yummy!

The rain slowed down a little so we put on our flip flops and hopped over to the misty Batukaru Temple, the second largest temple in Bali.

Our final stop, Pura Besakih, was a big hike away on the side of Mount Agung.  This is the largest and holiest Hindu temple in Bali.  There was a ceremony going on while we were there, so there were extra colorful decorations.

Driving back to Ubud through the island's central highlands, you can see pine forests, which is a world different from the tropical coast.

For dinner we returned to the restaurant across from our hotel.

In the evening we went to see the shadow puppets (wayang kulit), which were accompanied by a small gamelan.

Behind the scenes:  the dalang (puppet master) putting the puppets away.