Internet access has been sporadic and almost entirely non-existant. For some reason, my install of wordpress wouldn’t let me in to the admin section. it said something about the ip address of the internet cafe that we used in Ubud had been banned by whatever service wp uses to control spam. bummer.
Anyways, on to the good news. short n sweet. We spent 5 days in Ubud, soaking up the sites. I’ve been writing in a travel journal and when we get a better connection I’ll update proper. for now, here’s an email I wrote to my family a few days back:
so Ubud is rediculously fun. we moved from the expensive ($50/night)
place to the $15/night place yesterday. it’s in a really nice garden but the room itself is a bit dingy and was probably made 30 years ago and never touched again. i probably could have done a better job picking the place. no worries though, the money we’re saving is so worth it. but we do miss the ammenities of the last place for sure.yesterday we hired a driver and went up to mount batur, the crater lake. i thought we were going to the lake temple we went to last time, but this was something totally different. Wayan, our driver took us through a bunch of small crafts villages and the most amazing water temple. I got some insane pics for sure. one of these days i’ll figure out how to share them.
We’ve been to the Legong dances twice and the ketchak monkey dance too. i’m hooked. marcia thinks they’re a bit too long. ketchak was insane.
we went for a hike the other day north of Ubud into the rice fields. it was gorgeous. it’s amazing how Ubud is this bustling town, but you get two blocks off the main roads and you’re in rice paddies. makes me wanna ditch the car and get a vespa moped.
i’ve been getting gutted by the vendors here, marcia has been beside herself about how much money i’ve been getting taken for. but today we hit the local market and i finally got ahold of the bargaining thing. if they say $10, you say $2, and you agree on $4. good preparation for
thailand, vietnam and india. we’re finally getting into the traveling flow and we’re both looking forward to moving on to Nusa Lembongan. I can’t believe we’re still in week one. wow!i’ve been filling up pages and pages of a journal, so there’s more details to tell, one of these days i’ll transfer them to the blog, but i can’t seem to log in to my admin thingy, so it’ll have to wait.
we’ve looked into getting things shipped home and it’s rediculous, it’s not by weight but by cubic meter, and it’s $315 + $50 fumigation fee. and they ship it to Manzanillo and I have to figure out how to get it back from there. so i don’t know what we’re going to do about shipping stuff back. I bought a 2 foot high teak sitting buddha for $40, it was so cheap i couldn’t resist. i just hope i don’t have to leave it here. and i also got an antique barong mask. wonderful.
anyways, i should go. all is well. love you all.
obviously this was done on the quick fast, since internet is at a premium here. As a follow up, we did find cheaper shipping options and we’ve since left Ubud, reluctantly and headed for Nusa Lembongan, I’ll update again with another short email, later…
