When you're traveling for a month with no set plan, you're bound to have one of those days where you look back and think, "Well, that was kind of a waste!" That was today. We didn't do anything cultural or see any temples, get massages, or watch any performances. Instead, we started our morning like we do every morning with a banana pancake, fruit and coffee delivered to our porch. Oh and we switched hotels to Ubud Terrace Bungalow, because we wanted to be somewhere where there were people around. Here is much more busy, which is fun for a people watching person like myself!
After breakfast, I walked out by the pool to watch all of the monkeys who roam through the grounds in the early morning, looking for food and things to break! I saw about 20 this morning and one very scared hotel guest who was yelling at the poor grounds worker, saying, "The monkeys are everywhere! You have to do something about this!" I wanted to yell back, Lady, you booked a hotel next to the Monkey Forest! Did you think they were just gonna stay in there all day? lol Here's our bungalow, right next to the pool! Not too shabby for $35 a night!
After breakfast, we jumped on the scooter and headed in search of some beautiful rice terraces that we had read about that are just north of Ubud town center.
While we never found the one's we had read about, we did find some of our very own that we thought were pretty nice!
Bali is known for it's stunning rice terraces... some famous, some not so much! The great thing is, almost no matter where you scooter around this area, you're bound to find lush green fields of rice! Who knew rice was so beautiful! :)
As a side note... check out the ends of my hair. I think it might be completely dead. :( See, there are negatives to living like this for a month - There is such a thing as too much sun, saltwater and chlorine!
Our good friends Jess and Mayo bought a huge hand carved elephant when they were in Sri Lanka a couple years ago and Aaron and I have always loved it... so, when we saw that wood carving was prevalent just outside of Ubud's center, we knew it was the time to find our own little hand carved Indonesian elephant!
For a measly $10, we got this 5 pound gorgeous, one of a kind, hand carved elephant, which we appropriately named BALI. As he sits on our future bookshelf in our future home, we'll be reminded of this chance of a lifetime that we've been blessed with, to travel such a fabulous country!
The rest of our day was spent at the hotel where we swam, laid out by the pool, I blogged, we ordered pizza in from Pizza Bagus for $3.50 a pizza and watched Eat, Pray, Love (about 1/5 of it is filmed where we are) before calling it a night!