Robbie declined the trip to visit the monks as he didn't want to stray too far from a dunny this morning. I said that if he joined us, then he may get a special mantra said by the monks or something and be cured. He just muttered and did a bum cheek clench dash to the bog.
Not to be deterred, the three musketeers wandered off and headed down hill. A point of warning here, the street paths go up and down and after a bit of rain were bloody lethal. Sliding into a heap at the bottom of the hill we picked ourselves up and wandered over to the front gate to announce ourselves.
MONKEYS??, Christ I felt like such a plonker, honestly. Hiding my embarrassment and apologizing profusely to Emms and Sue, we paid our dues and wandered into the bush. Their forests aren't like ours back in NZ at all. Theirs closely resemble the rest of their island, including plastic bags and rubbish. I got a few shots of the plastic bag trees which were fruiting, and understand where they all come from now.
Seeing a group of mother monkeys with their kids headed our way, I gathered the girls and whispered to them that monkeys are notorious liars and not to believe anything they say about their offspring.
Well have I died and gone to heaven? There were big bins of free sweet potatoes everywhere, I picked a coupla plastic bags from a tree and filled them up for later. Apart from the sweet potatoes there wasn't a lot to see, except for some old buildings that looked like small versions of the team pal we had seen uptown and some carved stone mother in law thingies eating kids outside the team pals. Oh and a little bit like our forests in NZ, there were also some shallow depressions suspiciously like bodies had been buried beside a track. And of course monkeys, who, recognizing me as a silverback alpha male, stopped their monkey business and cringed as I sloped past. The forest is quite small and if we hadn't of got lost for two hours we could have covered it in 5 minutes.
Popping out, covered in scratches, monkey and mosquito bites, and clutching my plastic bags I saw a custodian and told him my suspicions about the depressions in the ground, and that they may be shallow graves containing bodies. He agreed with me and said they were. So I guess they were waiting for the forensics or police to arrive or something. We then turned back toward the Inn and commenced our climb. Back at the room, I shouted out to Robbie who was (well you know where) that I had a feed of sweet potatoes, only to look down and discover the bags had been ripped and the sweet potatoes were gone.
Cripes, glancing at my watch I realized that it was time for a swim (on second thoughts maybe not) and then Gusti would be here to take us away from this paradise, this slice of heaven, this cultural showpiece, and deposit us back in lowly old Legian. My soul stirred at the thought, at the same time as Robbies belly stirred. It would be along trip home for one of us. Had I said home????
Gusti arrived (early), and after saying good-bye to the locksmith who changed our door locks, we collected some towels that were lying on some loungers by the pool, leapt into the van and sped off down the steep hill, past tourists slipping on and tripping over a trail of sweet potatoes, with Gusti telling us about this cheap lovely beef sate meal he had eaten last night in a restaurant just down the road from where we stayed.
As stated in previous JBRs, the trip home seems to take half the time as getting there, and so it was this time. Except for Robbie, who was sweating a bit, holding his belly and grinding his teeth as we went over every bump. We arrived back in time for him to do the quick step to his room, and later for us to have dinner with our sisters party of 3 as it was their last night, and I wanted to get a few more subsidised binnies in before reverting to splitting the restaurant bills only 2 ways.
Sis's team shot through later to catch the red-eye, touching down in Sydney on the West Island of New Zealand before heading over the ditch to Auckland.
We discussed the fact that we only had 4 days left ourselves. What to do to ensure our quest for the Real Bali could not be misconstrued by others as just a drunken holiday?
Well I had heard of S, S &S on the BTF and even had a downloaded picture of the bar and a little write up about it. So I convinced the gang that a journey right across the island to Sanur and to find a watering hole seemed like a bloody good plan to show that we were not drunken slobs and that we were refined and cultured because we had stayed in Ubud.