Elephants, bats, and chocolate, oh my...

Last I wrote, I was lounging around on Sunday night while Mat and mom went to Ubud to see the kid who works here's dance...

Sunday Night
River and I stayed in and started the movie Inception.  He regular references it, as he has heard so many things, and we decided that if he was going to reference it, he should see it.  We found it at the second-hand store and started it on Sunday night, finishing it sometime Monday.  "It mostly made sense, but kind of fell apart when it got to limbo, I think" River said after watching it.  I think he speaks for the rest of us :)

Monday
Monday was a lazy day, not much going on.  I think that Mat and I both got massages, even though we are supposed to wait 3 days between, but as you have read, we rarely have followed that guideline, which was set strictly due to good-budgeting-standards...

Tuesday
Tuesday morning, we got up "early" and ate at 8:00 and met our driver, Adil (Wayan Adil), at 9 for a full-day excursion to the East.  We didn't have a great plan for where to go, but after talking with Adil for a bit decided to see the Elephant temple, the Bat temple, the beach, and then find the chocolate factory that Mat had read about, started by a guy name Charlie, from Florida.

We first went to the Elephant temple, Goa Gajah, which was amazing.  It had been a buddhist temple and then a hindu temple and had evidence of both.

There was a tree there that was more impressive than any I have ever seen.  Please forgive all of the pictures...

It was fun seeing River in a skirt for the first time :) I would say the same about Mat, but I am afraid this isn't the first time I have seen him in a skirt!  (The skirts are Sarongs that are the temple dress code for men and women.  If you are in long-pants, a sash is acceptable).

Having Adil there to tell us about the history and answer questions was just perfect, and he was able to tell us what the signs said and what was or was not appropriate (you can climb on that, but not that).

Next, we went to the bat cave temple , which was not nearly as impressive.  In fact, I don't have any great pictures as the main focal point was a cave, that you couldn't enter, with thousands of bats which, after taking their picture, just looked like part of the rock.  There were some nice statues and structures, but nothing too different from ones you see all over the place.

Next, we found the beach.  We had intended to swim, but realized that the beach we had picked, near the chocolate factory, was not really a swimming beach, but had a pretty view of nearby islands and rock formations.  We just looked at shells for a bit and decided to get lunch at a nearby warung.

This was a lotus pond near the beach

At lunch, we found the chocolate factory on the map and after lunch made our way there.  The chocolate factory turned out to be a neat, not too well known, tourist attraction.

We had to go down a long road, only wide enough for 1 car road through sandy ground speckled with palm-trees.  The occasional cow peaked our interest as we made our way down the mile or so of dirt-road.  We had one near-calamity when we approached another vehicle and our driver pulled as far over as he could, but the other driver couldn't get around and almost got stuck in the embankment of sand next to the road.  After some back and forth and nearly losing 1 or 2 mirrors, our driver found his way into a spot about 20 feet back from where he started that allowed for a better "shoulder" for the other driver to use to go around.  Once in, we found that there were a few dozen people there and the area resembled a neat wooden playground over a beach.

There was a wooden ship that looked like it came out of the hill to sit on over the water.

There were several swings reminiscent of Obiji farm swings (a friend's wonderland, for those of you that don't know the reference), large enough for 2 people each.  One of them required you to climb up to a platform for take-off.  River waited to go until just before we left.  We promised him that he would not fall and he went, like a champ, and after his first swing out, he came back to the top, dragging his feet on the ground, which proceeded to drag him right off the swing.  That alone would have been fine, but the swing, probably 25 lbs of wood followed its momentum and came back to smack him on his shoulders.  He took it standing with a rub of his shoulder and an "I told you so".

There were a few "smurf-houses" that housed the chocolate shop, a coffee shop, and off to the side was a soap-shop, as they also sold coconut based soaps.  We got samples and then proceeded to buy 40 dollars worth of chocolate (between all of us).

We decided that we couldn't afford 40 dollars worth of soap and so left without seeing the soap store.

We were all pretty tired and ready to head home after that.  The last thing on our list was to see the village of Mas where our driver lived. It is a wood-working village and we decided to have him bring us to the shop where he sold his work.

When we arrived, he handed us over to a young man who told us about the process and then walked us through the shop.  After walking through for a bit, we asked what was made by Adil and he showed us this piece.

The neat thing was that all of us had individually been drawn to this piece and I had even taken this picture already.  Unfortunately, it was outside of our means, as it started at $350, which we might have haggled down to 200, but still we couldn't afford it.

We got a cane for Mat (with a smiling buddha at the top) for 30 and a 10 inch tall piece that was a man, woman, and child embraced in a circle.  It didn't have a lot of detail, mostly smooth impressions, so it was cheaper and we haggled it down to 20 usd.  I would show pics, but they wrapped them up for us already.

Below are some of my favorite pieces, but I have to say, if I were a millionaire, this village is where I would buy my furniture/decor!  (We also found that this is where they take orders for the dozens of wooden male genetalia that we see at all the stores)

 

Back home, we got some dinner and slept well, having a late breakfast this morning at 10am

Wednesday
Not much going on today.  Woke up, ate, took a nap, read, showered, blogged...
About to go to the grocery store, going to check out a new one, Bintang, that we haven't tried yet.

Correction, just got back from grocery store, Made brought us to a closer, bigger store, Delta Dewang.  It was practically a mall and had everything, right down to frozen pizzas and pringles if you wanted them!  We spent way too much on groceries but shouldn't have to eat out for a while :)

Ok, pics are finally uploaded, so signing off for now!