leaving Ubud

After the challenging cycling tour through the rice fields, volcano, and jungle, I ended with a tour through Monkey forest. There are over 300 aggressive Macaques that live in this forest. 120 juveniles, 25 males, and the rest are all females. You can clearly see the territories outlines by the Alpha males. When I entered I brought a banana to give a lucky monkey, and I found a big outgoing male to give it to. I threw him the banana and he jumped up on the stone podium of the wall. His prehensile tale curled around the wall to steady himself while he peeled the banana. However, it got ugly when I took a picture of him, because the flash frightened the monkey, and he lunged towards me bearing all his teeth. I think I screamed and jumped back 10 ft. thinking he was going to jump on my face and bite my nose off! I was terrified, but I lived to tell the story! Thank you, God! :) I explored the dense jungle forest flooded with monkeys, and wandered through the jungle temples. The place was beautiful with it's streams, carved stone, draping trees, and Hindu shrines hidden in the foliage.
The next day Karen and I hired a private driver to take us to the temple on Agung volcano(the largest volcano on Bali). This was the day after an important religious holiday, but once we arrived we learned the ceremonies were still in session, and we were able to attend and witness a very unexpected sacred experience at Pura Basaikh temple. The men all dressed in white shirts with a matching hat with sarongs. The women all dressed to impress with flowers in their hair, elegant sarongs with matching belts, and see-through long sleeve shirts over a corset. There was Barung music which paraded up and down the steep steps weaving throughout the outdoor volcanic black-stone temple. The carvings were intricate. I was speechless, because this experience was magical and beautiful! :) I was humbled and felt blessed to be there. The women dressed me in traditional clothing and invited Karen and I in to observe.
After we left the temple our driver took us to Amed.
This morning in Amed I did my first wreck dive around and through an old WW2 ship that was shot down off the coast of Tulampen. The ship is called the USS Liberty. It was an incredible dive! The coral and marine life have taken over the old wreck, and made it into a spectacular site full of life and color from the depths of 3-25 m in the clear sea.
The 2nd dive was reef off shore dive where I saw more diverse coral and color than on any other dive in my life! I also saw my first Pygmy sea horse! I saw a maneray, 2 scorpion fish, a 3 ft. long squid, and so much more! OMG! It was amazing! What I also saw that blew my mind were the local women who carried the scuba tanks to and from the shore on top their heads!
Now I'm in Padang Bai where I will snorkel in the Blue Lagoon tomorrow and explore town, maybe set up a surf lesson, because I've always wanted to try surfing, and set up my dive to the Nusa islands to see the famous Mola Mola fish.
Indonesia is a unique and fascinating place. I can see that you need a lot of time here to learn the language and get to know the people intimately, as well as see all 14,000 island including the famous Komodo dragon island, and I feel fortunate to have 19 more days to spend here. I want to make all of them count!