Bali in a week. Part 2: Ubud and dancing

(Here's part one if you "missed" it)

I may have scared some of the locals with my guns. Or maybe just blinded them.

On Tuesday, we headed to Ubud. on our way there, or maybe after we got there (geographically, I was never completely sure where we were), we stopped to watch some sort of play/dance/tourist attraction. They provided us with a translation of what was supposedly going on, but it did little to help clarify things. Here's my understanding of what went down:

There once was a tiger. Let's call him DeMarcus, because who wouldn't want a tiger named DeMarcus? DeMarcus liked to dance, but he was also terribly afflicted by fleas. Lucky for him, he met a goofy monkey probably named Mr. Wellington, who liked to eat fleas. Mr. Wellington ate all of DeMarcus's fleas in exchange for DeMarcus not eating him. Quid pro quo. Then DeMarcus exited stage right to pursue a career as a dancer. Meanwhile an unnamed bad guy attacked Mr. Wellington. Mr. Wellington fought off the unnamed bad guy and cut off his nose. Seriously, that part totally happened, the monkey cut off some dude's nose. 

That was a seemingly long and unnecessary preamble to what then turned into a play about some lady (we'll call her Wonder Woman) who was un-killable and could make other people un-killable too. A bunch of bad guys, who were almost definitely Stormtroopers lead by Darth Vader tried to kill Wonder Woman and a bunch of her friends, but they couldn't. They stabbed Wonder Woman, slit her throat, and stabbed her some more but she wouldn't die.

Eventually Wonder Woman prevailed and slayed the bad guys. At some point DeMarcus and Mr. Wellington appeared again and everyone probably lived happily ever after.

The tiger, who I've named DeMarcus. Pretty elaborate costumes.

That might sound like a totally absurd analysis of the play, but if you watched it, it's absolutely a believable explanation for what happened. I mean, there weren't literally Stormtroopers, Wonder Woman, and Darth Vader but metaphorically speaking, that's literally what happened. It was endearingly silly, complete with bumbling comic relief and yet some hints of authenticity. They had music playing throughout the entire thing and incredibly elaborate costumes. Thoroughly entertaining.

Then we went shopping through some of the markets of Ubud. They had everything from penis shaped bottle openers to beautiful original artwork. They even had a Starbucks. Mandy and Josh got a few really awesome wood carvings made out of what we think was maybe mahogany. We had a running joke while we were there that anytime you asked someone what type of wood something was, they'd say "mahogany" and anytime you asked what type of fish something was, they'd say "mahi mahi". Unsure whether they were always telling the truth. Also, all the beer was Bin Tang. Bin Tang is everywhere in Bali and for $2-$4 a liter bottle, it was a screaming deal (unless you're on a secluded beach, then they'll gouge you for $10 a bottle). As someone who has won 576 free beer this year and attended WSU, I consider myself a connoisseur of both good beer and cheap beer. Bin Tang obviously falls into the latter category, but it's honestly some of the best cheap beer I've had. We drank a lot of it in Bali and I actually miss it a little.

One of the markets in Ubud.

When we were done shopping we drove to a restaurant that overlooked some rice terraces for lunch. It was beautiful. I have a really unfair view of what constitutes beautiful rice terraces thanks to our trip to Vietnam, but it was a great view. And the open air provided a much needed cross breeze.

After a full day, we headed back for a well-deserved happy hour by the pool. The only downside of having the super since private pool and patio overlooking the beach is that it probably tempted us away from getting an extra massage or two while we were there. 60 minute full body massages are about $20 in Bali. Jenny and I could both get an hour long massage and she could tack on a pedicure for less than just a single hour long massage would typically run you in the states. We didn't take advantage of that enough and I blame way-too-convenient private pool and beautiful beach front villa.

That night we had dinner at Le Zat, which was right next door to our villa. It was delicious and home to the best spring rolls in all of Bali. Lynn made a point of personally comparing the spring roles of every restaurant we went to and after careful deliberation, was able to confirm that Le Zat's are the best. I'm sure they'll be receiving their award in the mail any day. On Tuesdays, the restaurant has dancers perform traditional Balinese dances. These include some crazy hand movements that seem like you'd have to dislocate your fingers to be able to pull off. We had a preview of some similar moves during the performance we saw in Ubud, but for this one we were just feet from the stage and could appreciate it more up close.

One of the dancers as Le Zat.

After dinner we headed to bed. Snorkeling was planned for the morning and we needed a good night's sleep!

To be continued...

Bali in a week. Part 1: Flying, driving, paradise, eating, sleeping, adventuring.

Jenny and me at a water temple.

I've already chronicled in detail what flying to Southeast Asia is like in part one of my Vietnam Anthology. Bali is a little bit farther away than Vietnam but it's not Austalia-far. So no big difference. Our route was essentially the same too: Seattle to Taipei, Taipei to Bali, sketchy car ride from the airport to where we were staying. Bali is slightly more organized when it comes to traffic than Vietnam, but not much.

Our ride from the airport to our villa included several stop lights, an invention I'm not sure has yet made it to the Vietnam. And instead of there being about infinity motor-bikes, there were just lots and lots. What the drive to our villa did make me realize (and then later drives around the island further emphasized) was that the interstate freeway system that we have in the United States is the greatest, most underrated invention ever. From now on, instead of saying something is "the greatest thing since sliced bread" I'm going to say it's "the greatest thing since the interstate freeway system". Which makes way more sense. Sliced bread is ridiculously overrated. If you have un-sliced bread and want to make sliced bread, all you need is a knife and 45-50 seconds of free time. If you have the cluster-eff of Southeast Asian roads from city to city and want to make an interstate freeway system, you need divine intervention. If you replaced I-5 with whatever three dozen set of roads you need to get a similar distance in Bali or Vietnam, it would take you a day and a half. And that's if you miraculously avoid a head-on collision because the roads are only a lane and a half wide. Seriously.

It does prove that Americans are terrible drivers though. We're spoiled by lanes wide enough for our cars and unique guiding principles known as "traffic laws". Bali doesn't have these things. It's like the Wild West. At one point we passed a car with a twelve year-old driving. When I was twelve, I could barely be trusted to tie my own shoes let alone drive an automobile.

Despite the lack of a sophisticated highway infrastructure, we did eventual arrive safe and sound at our villa to meet up with Mike, Lynn, Mandy, and Josh. The place was amazing. A spacious kitchen and living room, opening up to a private pool and patio that overlooked the beach. Truly the stuff of paradise. Oh, and showers. Those are pretty critical after a billion hour plane ride.

View from our villa. Not fake.

We showered off, enjoyed a nice happy hour in our paradise villa and then had dinner in town. Candidasa, where we were staying, is a small, relatively quite town and there were plenty of restaurants within walking distance of our villa. We'd learn later that they could be a bit hit or miss, but the first night was a hit. Either that, or we were so sick of airplane food that anything else would've tasted delicious.

After dinner we crashed. I may have even fallen asleep during the walk home. Flying economy class on international flights makes you appreciate beds. Not that I have any experience with the rich-and-the-famous-classes, but economy sucks for trying to sleep. So after dinner we were ready to lie flat and truly sleep for the first time in a whole bunch of hours that I don't really want to add up because it will hurt my soul.

We had a relaxing start to the day the next morning. Breakfast was made fresh for us whenever we got up and we enjoyed in on the super awesome patio overlooking the water as waves crashed on the beach. Paradise, right?

Fueled up and ready to go, we called our driver and headed out to tour some water temples and try some poop-coffee.

I'll explain poop-coffee first. Luaks are a cute-ish mix between a minx, a rat, and a kuala. They eat coffee beans, which I think might actually be called berries at the time that they eat them, and then poop them out. Their digestive juices do something that allegedly improves the coffee beans. Low man on the poop-coffee-operation totem pole then digs through the Luak poop to find the magic beans. They clean them off and then roast them like any non-previously digested coffee beans. We decided to see what all the fuss was about and go to a coffee-tasting.

The poop-coffee staff strategically pairs the poop-coffee with what they call "bali coffee". Bali coffee is super crappy instant coffee that doesn't ever dissolve all the way and kind of tastes like brown water with mud in the bottom. It's terrible. By comparison, the Luak coffee was spectacular. I think it really was good on it's own too. The tasting also included an assortment of sweetened coffee and teas that were pretty meh. I'm maybe a bad judge for that though because I generally don't like anything sweet. Or fun. Or Christmas.

Coffee tasting

After the coffee tasting we headed to a couple water temples. The water temples are exactly what they sound like. Temples surrounded by water, sort of like in Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Pretty pretty, Vishnu would be pleased. I'll save most of my temple talk until a later entry when we visited the biggest one in Bali, but here's a picture Jenny took at one of the water temples. It's even more impressive if you know how typically blurry and unfocused her camera usually is.

A water temple

To be continued...