Ubud

Day 7
We woke up for the last time in Wayan's home.  We had an amazing breakfast from Nyoman, and then packed up and headed out for our next stop in Ubud.  We were dropped in the center of town where we walked down a narrow alley for about 50 yards.  It was cool to go down the Alley way because we were in the middle of town, but by the time we walked the 50 yards, it felt like we were nowhere near the city.  Our airbnb was so cute. It had 3 rooms total. A Green room, Red room, and Blue room.  We stayed in the Green room.  The bathrooms were awesome and made of stone.  When we checked in, the guy cleaning our room said he would be finished in a few minutes and gave us complimentary drinks while we waited.  This is when I discovered how good Papaya juice was!

Us waiting for our room. Spoiled

Once we dropped our bags, we decided to go immediately to the monkey forest! Right before Wayan dropped us off, we drove past it.  There were Yellow diamond signs with monkeys on it that said "Caution". I looked left and right for the monkeys! They were all over the place to our left! I told Brian I couldn't wait another day to go to the monkey forest.  Even though it looked like rain, we took off for the forest.  Once we entered, it was 3-4 hours of amazing little (and big) monkeys running around near our feet! There was a sign before we entered that said that it was bad to look the big monkeys in the eye as it is a sign of aggression. It also said that if the monkeys grab any of your belongings from your hand, let go, and walk away slowly...  At the beginning, I was kinda terrified every time a monkey looked at me!  

Brian next to a recently fed monkey

This is about as close as I could get at the beginning...

There were people selling bananas for people to buy and feed the monkeys.  I watched as they held a banana over their shoulder and a monkey would jump onto their shoulder, grab the banana, and eat it! It made for an awesome picture.  We walked around the park admiring all the little monkeys. I saw this really cute looking family and wanted a picture with the family. 

Do you see the monkey closest to me? My red bracelet looks like berries......

Once Brian took the picture, he said.. "uh oh.."  The monkey JUMPED on me and started climbing my legs.  I was being attacked by a monkey!  The monkey got to my wrist and started pulling and gnawing on the red beads.

Brian asked what he should do, and I said...."take. a. picture"

Of course you have to document something like that, then worry about the monkey afterward.  I was slowly starting to freak out when Brian said to take the bracelet off and drop it.  I started taking the bracelet off when the monkey lost interest and hopped off.  Scary! - and worth it.... We walked a little further into the forest, and Brian said "Oh I want to have one jump on me like that".  We made it happen....

Coaxing the monkey

It worked!

I sat down by Brian because there was a small little monkey and his mom on the edge behind him.  I took a selfie, and quickly realized I really needed to take my red bracelet off! I was once again got macaque attacked! 

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Luckily we captured the moment again.

And he got down my arm to the bracelet. Good thing he didn't want my phone.

It was really cool to be in the monkey forest. We walked a lot, saw an awesome bamboo swing, saw more monkeys than I could even count.  The monkeys were jumping from trees into pools of water, and onto people to steal their crackers, or checking humans for lice. It was quite the sight! Here are just a few other pictures we got in the monkey forest.

The swing we found..

This tree grew into the ground! It was insane!

A little baby monkey

Baby and Mama

Awesome bridge we crossed with the trees that grew into the ground.

Needless to say, the monkey forest was a success! 

When we walked out of the monkey forest, we noticed the rain was coming! We decided we needed another massage.  Brian got a back massage, and I had my first ever facial! It was so nice!  We both enjoyed it.  Brian was frustrated at the heat in the room.  He was sweaty and hot and couldn't relax as well being that hot.  That night, we walked the streets of Ubud and found a delicious spot to have dinner.  We then went to sleep at about 8 pm!  It is interesting, I didn't adjust as well as I usually do on trips. I went to bed early, and woke up super early every day. Its probably good that way, but it was just weird to me.

Day 8

We woke up the next morning, had a delicious breakfast (noodles with an egg on top for me, and a banana pancake for Brian..) and headed out to find a taxi driver to take us to the Safari about an hour SouthEast of Ubud.  As soon as we walked out the door, we found our driver for the day!  About 5 minutes from the Safari, I got a really sick feeling in my stomach. I knew Brian didn't bring his credit card... The whole time in Bali, we used cash, but for this park, it cost so much money to get in that we figured we would just purchase our tickets with a card instead.  I asked Brian how much money he had, and realized we may be a few thousand rupiahs off to get into the park.  The other bad part was...we would have to pay for our driver when we dropped us back home.  When we stopped at the park, our driver told us where to go to purchase the tickets. I told Brian we couldn't do it! It wasn't possible without the credit card, or our debit card so we could pull out more money.  We decided we had barely enough to get into the park. We told our driver what we had done and explained that when he dropped us off later that night, we'd run to get cash out of the ATM to pay him for driving us.  Brian even said, we will pay you an extra 50K Rupiah. He quickly agreed for the extra cash. (sigh of relief..) We bought our tickets and went in.  We had less than 50K, which wouldn't buy us hardly anything for lunch.  Oh well, we will just starve. Haha! When we entered the park, they gave us a guide to the shows for the day. The first one was a welcome to the safari park type of thing.  We decided to go. It was so fun! We saw an orangutan come out, wave to the audience, and peel some sort of fruit. I can't remember what it was.  The lady announcing then asked for an audience member to help bring in the next guest.  Brian's hand shot straight up! He was called up to hold a huge bird that had flown in!

I can't remember the name of the bird, but it was beautiful!

Brian won some "poo paper" that they make at the safari park out of elephant dung. Haha.  After that show, we ran to see the elephant bath!  Brian and I got HOSED by the elephants that were being washed and fed. It was fun and worth it. We learned that Bali has Asian Elephants, which are the 2nd smallest elephants next to the smallest - the Pygmy elephant.  After that, we ran to another show with tigers! It seriously was like the day was slipping away from us when we had to see the Elephant show still, the Komodo Dragon, and the Alligator feeding! We had so much fun running from place to place to see the shows, the feedings, and all the other animals in the park.  

My pal, and favorite part of this day

Not sure what Brian is doing. Had to put it in here!

Here were Brian's favorite things to see!

Whole chickens on a string for these Alligators!

My adorable, excited husband at the alligator feeding

The Komodo Dragon! Best pic we could get..

We met some new animals that I didn't know existed. This is the bearcat

I got to hold the Bearcat!

After realizing that this zoo didn't charge to hold/touch the animals, we began to have a party touching/holding the animals! Here are some of the pics.

Brian with the Lion!!

Yah, It was crazy..I barely touched it, but I DID touch it! haha

Orangutan with the monkey. :)

We could take a pic of this guy, but no touching. I think he was irritable from being touched all day.

We took a small safari drive where we saw a few more animals that weren't in the park.  They'd just walk around the vehicle, and watch us.

It seriously was such a fun day! After the safari ride though, it was about 3 in the afternoon, and we were in starvation mode. We noticed a noodle shop that was within our price range! We grabbed some noodles, spending the last of our money indulging on the yummy food! We decided we were about ready to go, so we started wandering to the front to find our driver.  We went through the aquarium, and noticed a sign that they would be feeding the pirañas at 4! We stayed the extra 10 minutes and watched them throw meat in to the pirañas.  They are fast little buggers.. They ate all the chicken thrown in there! No pictures, too crazy! haha.  

We made it back to Ubud, and I stayed with the driver as Brian ran to get his wallet to pull money out.  I told the driver, I will stay with you so you know we will pay you. He then said something that just describes the people of Bali so well.  He said "I know you guys would have come back. You could have gone with him.  I would have just waited for you here. If you never came back, well then, karma would be much worse on you than not paying me".  Everyone in Bali believes in multiple gods, they believe in karma, their culture is so crazy! I loved being there and learning all about it.  While waiting for Brian, we decided that he would be our driver for the next day to get us down to Kuta for our last place before flying out!  He agreed to do it! We decided to meet a little later the next day so we could have a lazy morning - and maybe fit in one last massage.

Speaking of massages, Brian got another that night, and I got my nails done! It was fun. I think Brian got hurt though. He got a deep tissue massage and it hurt him pretty bad.  Side note: the night before, there was a woman on the street begging.  She would send her daughter up to the foreigners and she would stick her hand out for money. They seemed to follow us around the night before. We didn't fall for it, but were really tempted to give them money.  While getting my nails done, the woman from the night before walked in! She worked there! It was super awkward. I just thought...Oh karma..its so real!