Ubud Water Palace Dance!

We were on our way home from Sari Organik when we rode past the Ubud Water Palace and I snuck a peak through a tiny passageway between Starbucks and Cafe Lotus and noticed that it was all lit up! 10 seconds later we were parked and heading for a vanilla latte at Starbucks and a view of the Palace at night. Can you believe this place?!

As it would turn out, the Palace was closed for a traditional Legong dance performance, but the side door from Starbucks led right into the Palace courtyard and nobody seemed to mind that we were heading out of it... so, we got to enjoy a traditional dance in the Palace courtyard for FREE with our Starbucks in hand!  Ready for photo overload?!  I was a bit snap happy.  It was mesmerizing, magical, sooo professional, colorful, deeply historical and cultural and different than anything I'd ever seen before. The way they moved their fingers, feet and eyes were pretty incredible... and the live music!  WOW!  Just WOW!















 
I did a SUPER crop so you could see how their fingers are all funky looking.  These girls start training when they're 5 years old to be this type of dancer, and I'm pretty sure their fingers are broken in order for them to look like this for the dance.  OUCH!

Guess who got to go up on stage and take their picture with them?!  Oh yea!

Tomorrow I'll continue on with some other adventures in Ubud, but between whitewater rafting, Sari Organik, and this, that's enough of a picture overload for today!