This last weekend Scotty, Jessie, and I joined our new friend Theiry for a day trip to Ubud, the cultural capital of Bali! We started in the rice fields for a hike through the famous stepped terraces as local Balinese planted fresh sprouts for harvest. It really was stunning. Then it was off to meet the civets and drink the Kopi Luwak coffee — supposedly the best coffee in the world, grown on the island, eaten by the cat-like creatures and pooped out, before being cleaned and roasted. The coffee was indeed a deep rich flavor. The best part was relaxing in the huge tree-house structure over the rice fields and tasting all the local coffees and teas.
After the strong kick of caffeine we ventured deeper into the forest to the Water Temple. This gorgeous 1000+ year old temple was built around natural springs and is a sacred Hindu place of purification. After that it was time for the Sacred Monkey Forest!!!
They may be cute as hell, but these monkeys are aggressive little creatures. After a few failed attempts at giving them bananas (they just came up, yelled and grabbed them while I screamed), we finally managed to get a few pics. Everyone got nipped at least once.
We closed out the day with pictures at the palace in the center of town and yummy gelato. Then last night we decided to head to the party town about 20 minutes away — Seminyak! So far I've spent about $250 total on my trip, not including housing and airfare. Bali is everything it was promised to be.