ubud

i have a rant (of course!) - travellers checks are a biotch to deal with in this country! with the exception of kuta. just don't do it. but if you find yourself someday in desperate need of cashing one out in ubud, go to bii bank. a little bit out of town, but i spent an entire morning finding this place (which gave a pretty decent exchange rate) so i had to make note of it. onwards...

ubud is BORING. yeah, it's beautiful here. but once you've seen monkey forest (which is really cool), the botanical garden (also really cool), walked monkey forest road a billion times, and seen a balinese dance, you're likely over it. the locals have picked up on this, obviously, and as they are always looking to make a buck, everyone offers totally overpriced tours for every sort of personality, OUTSIDE of ubud, of course. in that respect, if you're willing to shell out a few hundred bucks, "ubud" is very entertaining. let's see, you can zipline trees in bedugul for $60, go see dolphins in lovina (along with 20% of the tourist population on the island at any given time - i hear it's turned into quite a joke up there) for $50, whitewater raft a class II/III river for $65 (for a mere two hours...come on! whitewater adventures in yolo county gives you a full two DAYS, AND a rave party in the woods, no doubt, for $99)...the options are endless, but my bank account is not. thus, i opted for the more serene choice of spending Rp 250.000 (~$26 USD) at a spa for 3.5 hours. yes, that is right...i get a massage for 1 hour, a soak in some crazy balinese bath with milk and flowers for 30 minutes, a hair creambath for 1 hour (really needs it at this point), and a facial (my first one ever!) for 1 hour. sweet! massages around here actually go for like ~$8 USD for an hour. if you are a spa junky, bali is the place to come...well, ubud in particular because the market is saturated here (the women all say "massage?" and the men all say "transport?"), but really anywhere in the country.

so yeah, i've had a couple days here of total boredom, just waiting for the day to end. sad, huh? i made it through a book i purchased at a local shop in only three days, called "the friday night knitting club." pretty good, but the ending made me cry. what else? i did laundry yesterday. by hand. that was a production. i've eaten at different restaurants - most are gorgeous, e.g., view of a rainforest or rice paddy, and food is hella cheap here, like $5/meal or so, and the food is SO GOOD...and healthy. i get these killer indonesian health drinks for the equivalent of an american buck. one was made with tumeric, and it rocked my world. i am definitely going to research these suckers when i get back to the states. i am eating a ton of rice, and i never eat rice back home. and i've eaten breakfast every day for nine days! it's a record, and i kinda like it - nice time to sit back, relax, and read some more...and more...and more. (yes, i have actually gotten in quite a bit of studying for my LEED exam.) you actually need to eat in the morning because afternoon is too hot to eat, so you go all day totally full until the evening when it cools down. i've been drinking a ton of tea, too, especially ginger tea. they put real ginger root into the pots. yummeee.............

one more night here and i am off to toya bungkah for three nights, which is on danau (lake) batur, at the bottom of the volcano. i think it will be chilly there, but after my trek up the volcano (before sunrise), there are hot springs. that's what i'm talking about!!!