Ubud da Bhudda, Bali

Traditional Balinese ceremony.
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The cultural center of Bali: Ubud, where we spent a week relaxing in our beautiful little guesthouse in the jungle. Oh, and the fruit juice actually tastes like fruit juice here!! Heaven. :)

We decided that we had to pull ourselves away from the beach scene at some point! And the giant lizard in the bathroom was only inching closer to the toilet, so we took a car up to Ubud, a little North of Seminyak. Ubud is very different than the whole Kuta area, as it is a lot more quiet, as well as cultural. I felt like we were really in the jungle here and we were staying at a place that only had six bedrooms, so it was really relaxing. Late breakfasts and wandering around the town, scoping out artwork (Ubud is the place to buy in Bali) and gifts, and constantly dodging all the locals, "Transport?" they asked as they mimicked riding a Harley or something along those lines. They were there asking you literally every five feet.

Oh, and the lizard... still there.

Kevin trying to convert me.
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We took a trip up to Northern Bali to check out the volcanoes. It was such a beautiful scene, but of course it has been turned into a major tourist trap. I wish that we could have hiked up the volcanoe, but our driver wouldn't drive us to the bottom of the volcanoe where we could start the hike. A little miscommunication with the hotel and the driver about what our volcanoe intentions were... guess we shoul have just gotten one of the thousands of drivers asking us if we wanted "Transport?" every five feet. Maybe next time!

Milk bath!
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Well, I have to say we finally cracked - and bought everything we wanted to buy and more to bring back to the States with us. Drums, paintings, bamboo and coconut wind chimes (they are amazing) you name it... we bought it. We even bought a large salt rock that lights up, well... because it was heavy and from a foreign land, I guess. Ha ha. So now we have bags filled with stuff that we can barely get around the airport and will be lugging around putting in and out of storage through the rest of Asia and Europe. It will be worth it when we get it home, though. Or, at least, it better be! Ha ha.

It's almost like American Beauty in the Milk Bath.
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We spent our last few days back in the Blue Ocean in Seminyak so we could get the beach scene one more time and buy all of the things we wanted there. Kevin and I decided to brave the water one more time, but I don't think it was the same for him not having Chris to get on his shoulders and get wrecked by the waves with. I guess I'm not that cut out for it, and there was no way I was getting on Kev's shoulders going head-on into a wave!

We got the same room in the Blue Ocean as last time. Oh, and the lizard... still there. Moving on to Malaysia... where hopefully we can avoid those creepy reptiles.