The plan for today was as follows:
a. check out the silver Celuk Village
b. see a waterfall
c. visit the Kintamani Volcano
d. coffee taste-testing
e. visit one of the monkey forests
f. go see the Uluwatu Temple
g. see the famous 70 foot cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean
h. watch a fire dance performance
2. The waterfall was beautiful. It was totally secluded and we had to walk down this foot path to get to it but it was worth it. Two locals went down with us because they wanted to go swimming and so we chatted a bit with them.
3. My mom’s always asking me to pick up a piece of jewelry every time I go some place interesting and so today Snickers and I checked out the silver Celuk Village where they make all the jewelry by hand. To tell you the truth, as beautiful and stunning as their jewelry was, I don’t by any means envy them. After watching them just for a bit even my eyes hurt at looking at the extreme detail.
4. The volcano was cool in that we enjoyed it while eating luck at a restaurant but it wasn’t so cool considering the sellers outside that flocked to us like bees to honey. There were intense and at one point I lost my balance but because there we so many of them the cluster of them kind of acted like a wall and so I just bounced off them. They kept on yelling “one dollar, one dollar” at me and it was a bit too much. Snickers tried to come to my rescue by escorting me to the van at every stop. He’d push his way through the crowd and kind of shelter me so that they wouldn’t be so pushy or grabby with me.
5. I was okay with ignoring the majority of the sellers but the one that got to me was a little adorable girl about the age of seven. She called me “pretty lady” and tried to sell me postcards, of which I had just bought the other day, but she hit a soft spot in my heart and so I scrambled to give her some loose change. I asked her about her English, she told me she studies English at school, and all watched as they totally saw me falling for her. “She’s quite the powerful business woman” I told the others, “… I was buying whatever she was selling the moment her big brown eyes locked with mine!!!”
6. The sellers in the streets and at the tourist hotspots sell everything from fans and wooden boxes to the rights to use the public bathroom. Am pretty sure I got sworn at in Indonisian when I joked about using “God’s natural bathroom” (aka a tree) instead of wanting to pay to use a smelly, fly-invested bathroom with ghekos crawling up the wall.
7. The coffee taste-testing place was definitely an unexpected pleasant visit. Tara took us to this far-off the route place where we were escorted into a forest and lead to a private hut. There was a man sitting there and he then told us all about how they prepared the coffee, starting from collecting from the trees. Did you know that there’s an animal in Indonesia that eats the coffee beans from the tree and then the people go and collect it’s poop to make it into coffee?! I know… very strange but very true. We saw it first hand too. The animal’s digestive system isn’t able to break down the beans and so they come out fully intact. The people then take the poop and make coffee out of it. Snickers was all curious about checking out the poop while I was more curious as to tasting it. And you know what, it tasted good, a little bit too strong for my liking but it was good. My question though is, who the heck was the person who initially thought, “Hey, let’s make a drink out of animal poop!”
"I always told you that you were full of crap but now I know you literally are... look at you, drinking that poop coffee!" I told Snickers."Don't buy the poop coffee" Snickers told me. "Wait till we go home. You can just cook your own poop."
"Telling girls you drink poop coffee isn't the way to impress the ladies" I told Tara.
"Easy for you to say" Tara replied, "you're already married. He has to love you and now he has to accept your poop breath... hahaha!!!"
8. Snickers can’t seem to understand my fascination and love of monkeys. Monkeys are silly, unpredictable and funny. Who could ever hate a monkey?! Anyways, the highlight of the day was definitely visiting a monkey forest. Tara had warned us to not bring anything extra to the forest, like hats or sunglasses, telling us that many people train the monkeys to steal things in exchange for bananas. I was so excited to see the monkeys so up close but it was kind of intimidating also. They seemed so carefree, just sitting in the middle of the paths and on the rocks. It was definitely so very cool!!!
9. Besides Tara’s cool personality and silly jokes, he scored big with us when he took us to this particular monkey forest because it also hosted a fire dance and was located at the notorious 70foot cliff and beside the temple that I had wanted to see. It was like hitting three birds with one stone! Moreover, he also took us to the Elephant cave Goa Gajah and that was very beautiful, and we checked out a terraced rice field that was pretty cool. 
The rule at the temples was that if you wore shorts you had to wear a wrap. I was wearing 3/4 length pants but Snickers had to wear a total of two skirts... I mean "wraps"... today.
10. Our evening ended with us watching a Kecak fire dance that consisted of 60-some guys chanting and numerous characters dressed in very elaborate costumes. They had given us a written out synopsis of the show before hand and so it was interesting to see it play out. The stage for the show was situated beside the ocean and so as the show came to a conclusion the sun set and so it was so beautifully timed. Definitely a must see. By the time we got back to our hotel it was 8pm and we were wiped. It cost us $55 to rent a van and driver for twelve hours and with all the admission tickets and what not, our day totaled about $100. Mind ya, we did do a bit of shopping and so our shopping for extras today totaled about $70 (gift for my mom, coffee gifts for friends, lunch buffet, tip for that cute girl and for Tara). Total money spent today = $170.
QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Why couldn't God have given Korea Bali's beautiful weather and scenes?
QUOTE OF THE DAY...
People see God every day, they just don't recognize him.
-- Pearl Bailey
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