Aug 4 2010
Our day has been fairly lazy. We spent our morning going for a walk down monkey forest, taking in the shops, and restaurants, people, and scenery. I may have mentioned that I had been eyeing this really beautiful painted wood carved statue of the Hindu god Ganesh. The God Ganesh has the body of a man and head of an elephant. Hinduism is a fascinating religion. You’d likely not find a single Greek or Roman on earth that still believes the old mythologies and stories yet Hindus still fully believe in their very mythical god figures. Then again who am I to say what is real and what is not I suppose. Anyways we stopped in to have a look at good ole Ganesh. Sad, I felt like he was just out of our price range and the man working did not care to barter enough. So, we continued down the street until Ashton began to get a headache. He decided to go back to the room for some advil and I could keep walking. He would rent a scooter and come pick me up. When Ashton came to pick me up he had not made it back to the room yet so we went together. Once in the room, sitting there was the statue of Ganesh. What a clever surprise. He had convinced them to give a better price and now Ganesh will be coming to America. Once back on the motor bike we explored a little more of Ubud. We drove around most of the main city center streets and then up a road lined with mainly exporter shops. I wanted to take some photos so I went for a walk while Ashton scooted down the road for a little while. (Earlier in the morning I had to buy a new memory card for my camera, I had filled up the ones I'd brought.) On the road of exporters many shops had grand items for sale. Large carvings, furniture, statues, lanterns, and art. I even came across this beautiful, slightly out of place, Venetian mirror store. I love venetian mirrors. If only I could afford them. After Ashton picked me up I was dying of heat so we went and got lunch at this really delicious Indian restaurant before heading back to our hotel Cendana to go for a swim in the salt water infinity pool. The pool is lovely with three large Buddha statues pouring water into the pool and the pool edge rolling off into a very large and lushly green rice field. Ashton and decided to go back to the market to see if we could find a souvenir to send home for my mom, but we weren't there long before the market began to close for the evening. We also have still been on the look out for a pair of puppets reasonably priced. No luck, no luck. But Ashton has started up quite the collection of spices and I got some vanilla beans. They smell wonderful. Some how Ash and I got separated and could no find the other anywhere, so I went to the motor bike and waited for him. Ten or so minutes passed with no sign and it occurred to me, what if he is just standing some where waiting for me, perhaps back at the room. So I left a note on the scooter that I was going back to the room. Almost all the way to the room and I happened to glance up, here you must always look at the ground to watch where you are going or you may fall in a hole or trip on a pertruding rock or root or step on a dog, or offering, or any number of things, but like I was saying, I happened to glance up and there he was walking the opposite direction on the other side of the street. So we reunited, headed for the scooter, and then off to watch a shadow puppet show. We were waiting to pull out into the intersection and who should cross our path but him. The purple shirted french jerk scooting by on a motor bike with that same stupid hat on. Maybe I should back up. A few days ago Ashton and I had quick footed it up to this little gelato restaurant right before it closed. I had patiently been waiting my turn in line behind 4 other foreign woman when all of a sudden this man, a fellow tourist traveler wearing a purple shirt and stupid hat came wandering up and cut me in line. I said to him and his girlfriend, "Excuse me, there’s a line." and he stated back with a big dumb smile, "Oh i just wanted to look and see the flavors.” Okay fair enough. But then he did the unthinkable. Not a moment had passed that the other woman got the ice cream and there he was telling the scooper his order, hurried to pay and then left. I was enraged and vowed that should I ever see him again, I would give him a piece of my mind. I would tell him off so badly I may even sock him. And then, this very day did our paths cross again. Ashton and I saw him at the very same time and said "Hey there goes that French prick." (Or maybe we said a worse word.) And maybe he isn’t French but we dont care much for the French and we definitely don’t care much for him so he must be French right? So I yell, "Get him!" and off we go. Scared that I might actually scooter punch him (punch some one while on a scooter) Ashton refuse to get too close but I did shake my fist at him and yell, "YOU CUT ME IN THE ICE CREAM LINE!" Not my best work, or my finest moment for that point but I’m satisfied and still hoping he lost a little bit of sleep over it. Well before the show we stopped in a little shop just outside to look around and there was a beautiful pair of puppets. Unfortunately the price was, at the lowest 750 each. I offered 600 for the pair. That was a laugh followed by a no. (750,000 rupiah and 600,000 rupiah) The shop also had many shadow puppets. All different characters and intricacies some more elaborate than others. We entered the little theater room and soon the lights were turned off and instruments started to play. It was amazing. The story was of an evil demon who was killing innocent people of this land for no reasoning. The king, asks him to stop and the demon says that he will if the king will sacrifice one. Not knowing what to do, the king asks a wise queen in the next land what she would do. One of the queen’s five sons, named Bima, says he will go and be the sacrifice and he will stop the evil demon. The demon is mad now because he finds that Bima actually has supernatural powers as well. So Bima defeats hundreds of demons before finally killing the evilest of all and everyone lives happily ever after. The puppets are mad from a leather and is intricately cut with beautiful cut out designs for the light to shine through. Everything is done behind a screen and there is flame to cast the shadows. I was enthralled with the intricacy and the fact that it is only one puppeteer controlling all of them. I really loved it. As usual Ashton dozed a bit but he liked it very much as well. When it finished and we were on our way out, we were stopped by the shop owner that said, okay I will sell you both for 600,000. Ha HA. They are a very lovely pair, besides 2 other pairs we had seen which were Very beautiful with metal crowns and jewelry (also very VERY expensive), these were the nicest puppets we had seen. It was good fortune. We grabbed a light dinner before making it back to the room. After I finish writing up a couple of post cards it's off to bed. Tomorrow we are Lovina bound.
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