Friday – We both woke up feeling heaps better this morning seems the magic tomato soup from last night fixed our head colds up, nothing like some comfort food to make you better. I think all the spices and chillies in it helped to clear the head. 🙂

Time to take on Bali full throttle today, Uluwatu was our destination (the monkey temple) this one was also by the sea and another one we had hoped we could have seen at sunset. Again the weather was against us with that (Next time) .

We did our normal thing and went to the front of the hotel to get a driver for the day. We were greeted by Mr Tony. He said that he was number 15 in the line today but because he drove us yesterday he gets to have first crack at us. We were pretty happy with that as we liked him. We asked him what being number 15 meant and he said that he just has to wait his turn as they did this so everyone got a chance at offering their services. He said some days you might not get a job but you move further up the line the next day. He said it was fair as everyone had an even chance that way. But the incentive was if you had done a good job the day before the customers will want you again and you can go from being number 15 to number 1. Mr Tony had a permanent smile tattooed on his face and we were very pleased that we got him again. 🙂

Of we went to Uluwatu we were heading in a different direction today & the roads seemed to be a lot bigger and less congested this way. Felt like western progress had definitely made its mark here. Then we turned off the big open roads and onto the more village type roads & it was quite hilly with little traffic. We drove past the university which seemed to go on for miles. Then we arrived at the temple grounds.

Mr Tony was very concerned about our welfare here he told us to take of our sun glasses, hats and jewellery and put them safely away in our bags. He said the monkeys love anything shiny and they will steal it and that will be the last you ever see of it. He also told not to get a guide & to have fun but just keep your eyes on the monkeys.

Surprisingly there was no market here or even anyone trying to sell us stuff so we casually walked over to the counter to pay our entrance money and get a sarong. There was group of Korean tourists before us so we just waited at the back waiting our turn. That is when the monkeys arrived or should I say attacked! They were jumping all over the tourists stealing their sunnies and the thongs off their feet. The girls were screaming and it was so funny but scary at the same time. I was little (a lot) apprehensive but I knew Robbie would look after me but who was going to look after him? I had read that these little creatures can have rabies. They were cute and monster like all at the same time. 🙁

Ok… breathe….. Linda you can do this they are little tiny monkeys, it was our turn to step up to the counter. I was tempted to run back to Mr Tony and hide in the car. Robbie grabbed my hand I was shitting myself to be honest but trying not to show it. Robbie can read me like a book, then a man arrived with a big stick and he kept the monkeys away from us while we paid and got dressed in our sarongs. He started chatting to us and said it was his job to protect us from the bad monkeys. I immediately thought it was all just part of the service but seems we had just gotten our selves a guide which Mr Tony told us not to do. Robbie was on to it straight away but he could see I was already more relaxed with the man with the stick so off we went. He chatted away pointing out the naughty monkeys telling us how they steal and bite and that they love shoes. “They just steal them and run away” he was telling me. He was welding his stick like he was a Jedi. Hehehe. No it wasn’t that bad but I felt like he was protecting us. Then he started to negotiate a price for his limitless protection. Robbie could see it was making me comfortable having him there with the stick so he agreed to 100000 Rp (about $10) Later Mr Tony was surprised and told us we were ripped off we should have paid no more than 30000 Rp ($3) he was very upset that his countryman had ripped us off . We told him it was ok not to worry he did warn us.

Oops I got distracted there back to the story. We had our Jedi guide and off we went & there were monkeys every where but he did keep them at bay and told us little stories along the way about the temple. There were ladies trying to sell fruit to feed to the monkeys along the way but I thought bugger that then they will attack me. Our guide found a gang of nice monkey and bought them over for us to see, next thing you know Robbie has one on his head and then so do I. I was just hoping it didn’t poo or wee on me. Anyway got the photo opp and then moved on. The guide gave me some apple to give to the monkey, he said just give it and back away and take the photo so I did. Our Guide was trying to get us through the temple grounds at lightening speed (guess if he got us back fast he could get his next lot of suckers) but never rush a Godden, we had pictures to take and Robbie was not going to be rushed. We both got some fantastic photos that day too. This temple was perched right up on a mountain over looking the ocean it had spectacular views. The temple was very ho hum but the views were to die for. In one section our guide could not enter as there had been a death and the family of that temple were in mourning so he gave me the monkey stick to protect myself through that section. Hehehe in hindsight we could have just carried our own stick.

The guide did a great job of protecting us, we did see quite a few people have stuff stolen by the monkeys – mainly thongs. The paths were littered with thongs that monkeys had obviously stolen off unsuspecting tourists over time. The monkeys like to sneak up from behind but we were safe with our Jedi & I must say and he was also very informative. 🙂

Robbie went to take some pictures of the ocean out of the fenced area. This is on a cliff edge I did not follow him that’s for sure. He is such a dare devil dude of course I was worried a monkey would come and crash tackle him and push him over the edge. There was a section over the edge of the cliff face where all the old offering baskets and been thrown, there were thousands of them so Robbie took a picture of that & they were just a little bit on the nose as well as they were all full of food etc.

The guide also took some photos of us together as the views really were unbelievable. We wandered around for about an hour taking our happy snaps.

We came across another group of Muslims that saw Robbie was about to take a shot so they all smiled and waved I was blown away by the friendliness of everyone the only nasty person I saw was an Aussie bitching about the rain and that she had paid for this. Hello…. its raining season what do you expect? Silly lady!

We found Mr Tony and then he said he will take us to Uluwatu beach which is world famous for the surfing there so we were happy with that as Robbie wanted to go there anyway. Mr Tony was doing a great job for us.

We went through a mountain like village area, could have been Nimbin had a real hippy feel about it. I was thinking we are going higher and higher but the beach should be lower what was going on? Then we pulled into a car park perched high on a cliff face and Mr Tony said “we are here”.

“What? Where’s the beach?” I thought. We were on a mountain for goodness sake. Then Mr Tony pointed, it was there alright but it was way down the cliff face by what looked like a million steps. The view was spectacular again and a village weaved it’s way along the cliff and the steps down to the beach. There was a restaurant on the top of the stairs so I decided I wasn’t going to go down to the beach but to stay up high have a drink and take in the view and what a view it was. Robbie of course had to go down check it out. Mr Tony stayed with me the whole time chatting along. I knew he had some other driver mates there and I told him I would be ok and that he can go hang out with them if he liked but he stayed with me he didn’t want me to be alone. He was so nice. 🙂

Robbie was gone about an hour and to be honest I was getting bit worried but I could see it was a long way down. Then to my relief he popped back up big smile on his face and covered in sweat. So I ordered him a drink and then Mr Tony said I leave you two to talk and then he went over to his mates. Robbie got some absolutely amazing shots. He said it was an epic journey to get to the beach he said there were people trying to sell him stuff all the way down there were little places to have a drink, homes, surf shops everything was down there and heaps and heaps of steps. He said that it was quite a journey getting down to the actual beach. He had to cross what looked like a ladder lying on its side. This was a make shift bridge but he had to navigate it with camera in hand and not fall into the water. I would have never been game to do that. The path to the beach went into cave and the way into the ocean was through this cave so the surfers had to carry their boards all this way to make it into the ocean. This was definitely for hard core surfer dudes, or epic adventurers with their trusty little cameras. Robbie was so pleased he had journeyed down and I was so pleased I didn’t. hehehehe . I would have bitched and moaned all the way back up for sure. Anyway the pictures were beautiful.

So after Robbie had had a nice cold drink and a rest we found Mr Tony and off we went again. He said he knew of another place that was good for beautiful photos. He had a real good sense of finding things for us to photograph which was quite amazing as he told me he has never owned a camera or used one. He stopped on a bridge and said for us to go look over the bridge for good picture and there was a beautiful beach down there. Robbie scuttled to the other side of the bridge to get the perfect vantage point to take shots of the beach below. There was another temple in the jungle setting to the edge so I decide to take pictures of that as we tended to be just taking similar shots all the time. I could see monkeys jumping all through the trees but just couldn’t seem to get a picture in time. I ended up just taking pictures of the temple. Anyway when we got back to the hotel I had actually by fluke got lots of pictures of monkeys as unbeknown to me the walls I had been photographing had monkeys actually perched on them. What a lucky fluke. Without my glasses on I thought I was just taking pictures of stone walls. I could pretend that I knew I had taken them but I cannot tell a lie.

Mr Tony asked us if we wanted to see the big Guruda statue he was on a roll feeding our photography lust. So we said why not. He was chattering away big statue , big statue, then we saw the top of it up on a hill so we were getting quite a bit excited about it but soon we were deflated . Yes it was a big statue but it was pretty well brand new we were expecting some ancient structure. It was like someone had made Bali world, it was a little theme park type place with everything Bali. Obviously it had been designed to extract money from tourists. No cultural significance at all. Anyway we took our photos all the time thinking it was very gammon.

Well after hours of sight seeing it was time to head back into Kutu. All the days we had been there we had gone past this huge roundabout with a gigantic monument/statue in the middle it was so congested with traffic. Robbie told Mr Tony he would like to get a photo so Mr Tony found a good place to stop so he could take some shots I stayed in the car way too much traffic and noise for me. There was a police officer standing there doing who knows what. Robbie said Hi to him but he didn’t respond Robbie thought it best just to leave it at that, he looked quiet cranky in the photo that Robbie took of him. Mr Tony told us the statue was for the god of water. We got back to the hotel exhausted and decide just to chill out for awhile and have a look at out photos as it had been a very big day of snapping. We broke out our duty free grog again and I ended up quiet tipsy. Robbie and I just had a nice chat and then we decide to head over to the beach to see the sunset. We ended up with our old mates the boys from Sumatra who were singing up a storm and as this was our second last night in Kuta. Robbie was buying them all drinks and they loved Robbie big time. We ran out of Bali Money so Robbie went off to get some more money changed. He had to battle the traffic to get to the money changer but by this stage of the trip we had found a guy that we knew we could trust to change the money with. There were many people down at the beach waiting for the sunset and so many people selling things to eat. There were ladies with dishes full of god knows what that people stopped to buy and scoff. I was saving myself for the restaurant tonight. So we stayed well after sunset and ended up the last ones on the beach with our Sumatran friends singing in the dark. Well we had to leave as the call of nature was with me so we dashed back to the hotel to take care of business. Then we went and had a nice dinner which was as yummy as usual. After dinner all my momentum was gone and I needed to sleep. It was a huge day but it was still really early only about 930 but the sleep fairy was with me so I had to go crash and burn so home to the hotel we went. 🙂

PS. Check out the Galleries for updated pics 🙂