In Indonesia (Feb 2013) (Bali Part 1)

So two days in Bali ARE NOT ENOUGH! I had plans to go to lots of cool places but we only had time to go to Ubud city and Kuta.

Bali is famous for cheap and good spas. We went to an awesome one called SKIN in Ubud city. Ubud is the hub for pretty much everything.
After massages and mani/pedi we went to the tourist office to buy tickets for the famous Legong dance at the Sultan's palace. Seeing a local dance performance was something I really looked forward to!
We tried looking in the Ganesha Bookshop, a store recommended by the Lonely Planet guide. Let me warn you.... NOT WORTH IT! It doesn't have that many books on Indonesia and everything's expensive!
So before the dance performance at night we went to the Sacred Monkey Forest. Monkeys there are known to be aggressive and just snatch things from people. I saw a monkey take a guy's back of chips and eat them.

We got to buy a bunch of bananas to feed them and the monkeys just swarmed on us as soon as they saw us. I was pretty jumpy around them because I know their claws and teeth are super sharp. Well... just my luck, an adult male decided he didn't like me and chased me, biting my pants three times! That was totally not cool! Must remember to bring a stick next time to scare them away.



The little ones were cute though. One tried to reach for me but I wasn't sure if he had good or bad intentions so I backed away.






Then we walked around a market selling dresses and did some hard bargaining with the locals. After that was the Legong dance! It was remarkable! I loved how eye movement and hand movement were important in the dance. They also had a creature that looked like a Chinese lion!


This was the opening music of the dance.


Look at the cool hand and eye movements!


Here's the "lion" and the ending of the show!!!!

See you on Kuta beach next entry! :)

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