Day 51: Ubud, Bali, Indonesia (February 27, 2011)

I've been in Bali (an island of Indonesia) for less than 24 hours but my initial impression is that most people come here to do one of three things:  surf, snorkle, and loaf around resorts.  Well, the number goes up if you separately count going shopping for inexpensive (but not necessarily "cheap") stuff, dining, and drinking.  This isn't a criticism (so far), but I definitely feel like I am in a vacation destination, in the sense that people come here to relax and enjoy recreation, rather than explore or learn.

Some leaf.

I walked to the center of town today, which has a couple of sites but is mostly devoted to markets and shops (lots of them, most of which are very cute), restaurants, and inns.  I'm glad for all the places to eat because indonesian food is one of my favorites, and I've had to go without ever since Sabang in Wheaton closed down a couple of years ago.  :(  Tonight's dinner of fish and veggies in peanut sauce reminded me of that place... how I miss it!

These flower offerings are all over the place, frequently smooshed by a foot or a monkey.

The two sites I visited today are both in the center of Ubud, the Ubud Palace and the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary.  I'm not sure what the Palace is all about.  There is no charge, you can just wander in.  But it seems little more than a small series of courtyards and pavillions.  They are pretty, but there isn't a whole lot there, including any explanation of what it is or when it was built.  Even Ubudpalace.com (which I looked up after I went there) doesn't say anything about it lol.  But here it is:

The Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary was a lot more fun.  It's home to three hindu temples and to a few hundred monkeys.  I didn't think I'd be all that impressed with the Sanctuary's monkeys.  After all, I've seen hundreds of them already.  But these monkeys were really playful and funny, and there were a lot of babies around.

The females have beards.

The males have mustaches (and I had to look up how to spell that word).

This monkey kept licking this statue.  Go figure.

There's a graveyard in the Sanctuary, which i assume is for monkeys, but maybe it's for people.  Not clear.

I spent the late afternoon in the pool and then the bathtub (which feels like such a luxury!).  Indonesia is, like almost everyplace I've visited, a coutry where you sweat just standing around in the shade.  I've been longing for a pool for weeks now, and after hours of walking today it felt so good.