Thursday morning began with photos of some of the flowers outside my room before I made my way to monkey forest where the monkeys were just hanging out in the street as the scooters came by and the monkeys enjoyed their morning.

I then walked to the center of town capturing head carriers and a street sign with another head carrier and the parking authority along with merchants selling all manner of items many of whom brought their items on the back of their trucks as another carrier went by and I focused on what was on truck bodies and this lady selling flower pedals for offerings as others also sold their wares not to mention mangoes and papaya and things made of bamboo cantaloupes and another head carrier before I came across this statue of a family and a reminder that I had gone to the monkey forest earlier until I returned home and took this photo of today's offering to the elephant.

I met up with Michael Walsh at breakfast and together we connected to Wayan Tabeng for our guided tour of the day. Our first stop was Gunung Kawi, a temple that had been there for over a thousand years. The temple was placed in a remarkable setting, clearly being a shrine to the nature that was there. we were greeted by a sign giving the prohibitions (here you needed a sarong as well as a scarf around the waist) and then made our way into the environment (which meant walking down 300 steps)

with many shop keepers trying to sell us their wares as we went on and arrived at the place where we needed to sprinkle the holy water as Michael did and saw the structures in the distance in their environment as we went past a shrine and saw the jungle-like stream before we reached another entry where offerings had been assembled and we came across a series of spouts which we would understand better at the next temple as we found our way to these structures built into the rocks and many banners of yellow since there are 3 deities -- Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva-- each of whom has their own color. There were many interesting structures before we came to the place where shoes had to be removed and we went through this area to see into shrines and pass others looking at structures near and far in the forest setting and near us and this structure with statues as we came away from the major structure in the rock which Michael was recording and the flowers by the canal not to mention the holy water warning where we didn't go as we made our way through the flora and saw these tourists across the way looking towards us before we headed to the structure where they were taking one last shot of where we were and walked through the flora across the stream and through the jungle like vegetation away from where we had been as I admired this croton even as I saw the jungle growth and we made our way to the other side which we explored following the rules and we then looked across at the tourist girls on the opposite side as we still enjoyed the jungle growth and the layered rice fields until we were in the shops area.

Next, we went to Tirta Empul, another remarkable temple. At this one, there were ceremonies taking place wherein the locals were going through various stages of ceremony. Here was the major statue of the locale in its setting as we came upon the banana ladies and recorded the cultural importance of the place (the Subak System as a manifestation of the Tri Hita Karana Philosophy where we were visiting the Supreme Water Temple Pura Ulun Danu Batur) and so we made our way through and entered into these pools where a ceremony was taking place to our left with the pools lying ahead of us attracting the occasional dunker as the ceremony continued with materials being moved and fish being in a different pool as we saw the prohibitions for entering the inner sanctum and watched as participants made through way across the different spouts each of which brought a different kind of power and watched as others brought offerings and a group assembled to pray having brought offerings and we saw the warning about not interacting with them (which made sense) and so we admired what we saw as they prayed and we saw remarkable buildings before we made our way through people carrying things on their heads and recorded the scene music and all ../../../Sabbat/2012/10.23-11.02.12SingaporeAndBali// before departing through the gift shop area to the parking lot where I recorded a police car. On our way to the next stop, we came across a number of women parading to the temple to have their fruit blessed and we ended up at the coffee plantation where we saw some beans on the tree and this beautiful flower in its setting and this fruit which was a mangosteen and a cinnamon tree with these bananas hanging from a tree and pineapples along with the beautiful flowers before we had a snakeskin fruit with this interior and then these fruits of the lyche family with the rooster making his presence known as I tasted this non-citrus tasting citrus-like fruit as we were given samples of 10 teas and coffees and I tasted the ever famous luwak coffee that is processed in the most unique of ways (thank you Mr. Luwak animal for taking care of mine).

As we left for the volcano, we saw a parade heading towards the temple (this was a continuation of the women with fruits on their heads).

Next we went to the volcano which was completely remarkable but the vastness made it difficult to capture the enormity of the scene but still we had a good lunch with these remarkable views in all directions. It was here that I heard about the locals who do not bury their dead but rather leave them in the forest where the climate preserves them and the animals eat them.

Next we went to the rice fields which had been made famous by Eat Pray Love. As Wayan explained, there is a special system for controlling the water flow so that things are shared and so we took in the many views before taking a three musketeers photo. Michael and I explored a bit and ran into this gentleman who was happy to have his photo but then asked to be paid. Oldest con in the world and I fell into it.

We ended the day at the Discovery Kartika Plaza hotel where this was the room and the view.

After a break, I went out to see the sun set over the Indian Ocean and also looked back at the town with the sun setting and the lights under the palm providing foreground to the sunset background as I took more sunset photos and more photos the other way.

By and by, I reconnected with Michael and we noticed that we had each been given two certificates for free local beers and so we dug into Bali Hai before proceeding to dinner which was accompanied by this pitcher of Bali Hai which looked much better in the light and went well with my pina colada as breads and dips were brought before our caprese salads arrived.