Day 54: Ubud, Bali (March 2, 2011)

A day of not doing very much can go by really quickly.  Since I woke up early yesterday, I slept in a bit today, then spent the morning looking for hotels in Darwin, Australia and beginning my search for a couple of tours in that country, especially to Ayers Rock.  I knew I was going to have sticker shock once I got to Australia, but it seems even more expensive than I was expecting.  This might just be because I'm looking for tours, and my ordinary days there will be more reasonable.  At the end of trip, I'll post what my expenses turned out to be, and how much they deviated from my expected expenses.

I spent a few hours window shopping.  I haggled at the local market for an I Heart Bali washcloth.  The girl wanted 7 dollars, I offered 60 cents, and wound up getting it for $2.  Yay me.  I also purchased a new bikini, which -- if you're lucky! -- I'll model in a future Hi Noon photo.  (Probably somewhere in the South Pacific).  The one I brought with me is 10 years old, and is a little stretched out, so it's being replaced.  Sadly, I got the bikini at an Actual Store, not the market, so I couldn't haggle the price down.  Boo!

Typical back alley in Ubud.

Example of door carvings and modern architecture.

After lunch at a cafe, I went back to the spa in the rice paddies, this time for a combo massage and body scrub.  The body scrub needs a little explanation, I think...  Even though I've been taking at least one shower a day, and really scrubbing because I've been covered in dirt for 7 weeks straight, it wasn't until I got to Bangkok that I'd gotten a washcloth.  Everyplace else was soap and towels only.  And let me tell you, after that first shower in Bangkok, that washcloth was dirty.  I couldn't believe how much dirt was still stuck to me, despite how often I soaped off.  (I guess that's why parents yell at the kids to use the washcloth.)  So when I saw body scrubs on the list of services at the rice paddy spa, I figured I'd try one, if for no other reason than to scrape any remaining dirt off me.  And, it's like $7.

Open to the air, allowing breezes to come in.

For those of you who like to read about my massages, you'll find this one interesting.  I'll start by saying it is the most naked I've ever been during a massage.  It's standard in the U.S. to be nude under a sheet, but all the naughty bits stay covered up.  Well, they sort of did here too, until the girl doing the scrub part of the services started in on me.  So for much of my time, I had one girl working massaging one part of my body and the other scrubbing another part.  In the end, nothing stayed covered.  Although I suppose I'd have been just as uncovered I'd only gotten a scrub.  The massage itself was pretty similar to the deep tissue massages I get in the U.S. -- long slow strokes, pulling on the muscles (which is why you have to be nude or close to it).  But it also included a couple of new areas -- specifically, my entire belly (kneaded gently) and my chest muscles below my shoulders, all around and between my breasts.  Even the massage therapist I used to date didn't tamper with those parts when he gave me freebies.

I ate dinner at the hotel.  The food here is really good and really cheap, so I usually eat lunch elsewhere, and dinner here.  Apparently, the chef used to work on some cruise ship and is top notch.  Just for kicks, I tried his spaghetti carbonara, which is one of my favorite dishes (although not at all indonesian).  It was good, but I am proud to say that mine is better!  That's probably the only dish I make that I can actually brag about, though.

I'll end the post with a photo of one of the frogs (or are they toads?) that like to hang out in my semi-outdoor bathroom.  Toads and frogs are my second-favorite animal(s), after rabbits, so I'm delighted to have a few living with me.