July 15 day 151
We
got up and couldn't find out hosts anywhere, which was a problem as we wanted
to go to an early yoga class. I wandered
through the site and a man directed me to a woman in a kitchen who started
preparing our breakfast. Half an hour
later it still hadn't made it to our room so I went up to get it and she was
just finishing up. I took it to our
room and we quickly gobbled it up. We
were supposed to be half an hour early to register for the yoga class but we
figured if we were 10 minutes late it wouldn't be a big deal.
It
wasn't. After finding the class we
joined the line and got in, no problem.
It was fun going there as you saw people in tights or with mats
converging from all directions to the Yoga Barn.
The
class was in a beautiful space and run by a very fit dude. All levels of yogaers were there but they
definitely skewed young and female. The
course was good exercise but Meg was disappointed that it wasn't 90 minutes
long. I was just happy that I didn't
have the pain from my double pinched nerve that I had in Columbia.
After
class we headed back, changed and then went onto the main street to get some
errands done. We got our transport to
Lombok set up by the most unenthusiastic travel agent we'd ever dealt with. We then poked our noses around some shops and
had a nice lunch of Indonesian appetizers.
We
were planning on seeing another performance of the fire/monkey/trance dance in
a little village outside of town. Meg
asked our Floridian/Indonesian laundry guy how we should do it and he suggested
letting our hotel owners set it up so that they could get a cut and we could
support a local driver. We did this and
she said she'd take care of it.
Unfortunately Ogur texted us to say he was seeing a house that evening
and couldn't make it. We were going to
have to enjoy it on our own.
Our
ride was there 30 minutes before the performance and the owner said that we'd
have to talk to him about the price. He
was a local shopowner and was charging more than we expected but wouldn't
budge. It was too late to find an
alternative so we took it. It wasn't
much by Canadian standards ($13) but we did feel a little taken advantage of.
He
dropped us off at the village temple and we sat in a ring of chairs, front row
this time! It was outdoors and the
flames were going as more and more tourists filed in. Once they got going we were surprised to see
twice the number of choristers - it had to be close to 100 - file in and take
their places around the fire.
The
story was the same but we heard subtle differences n the music and the structure
of the story. It was still mesmerizing
and the large number of choristers meant that the sound really enveloped you
once they got going.
In
the middle of the performance it started to pour rain so everyone grabbed their
chairs and scooted to a covered area not far away. We were directed into a new circle and Meg and
I got separated in the process. They
started the dance again but I had some losers behind me who kept talking
through everything. After being glared
at a few times they left early and missed some of the cool stuff that was to
come.
During
the demon battle a few dancers came out and started breathing fire in all
directions, which got a surprised reaction form the audience. After that they ended the battle quickly and
posed for pictures with the audience.
The rain was lighter now so we quickly found our cab and headed back to
our neighbourhood in Ubud.
We
went around the corner to a busy restaurant recommended by our hotel that was
always busy. We checked the menu to make
sure that there were veggie options and then waited in line for 10 minutes to
get in. The staff were dashing all over
the place to get everyone served and we were surprised to hear that they only
had warm big beer so I opted for a small cold one. The place was famous for their ribs, which
were among the best I've had and Meg was satisfied with their vegetarian
options. At one point a woman fell of
the bench behind us. We couldn't figure
out how she managed to fall (her head just missed our table) but she was on her
phone so I guess any clumsiness can occur.
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| The performance outdoors at the temple with the large chorus. |
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| We moved inside once the rain started and it was still impressive. |
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| Meg with some of he cast. |
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