The Magic of Northern Bali

We are starting on our last half of our tours. Our tour guide was Dika again. We had 9 people on this tour. The woman from toronto and her husband, a couple from Belgium and a group from Lethbridge. We took a long drive to the village of Pupuan to see the rice fields. All of the fields are built into terraces. We made a few different stops to see them from different views and different slopes. I'm amazing by how much work would have to go into keeping those rice fields as they dont use machinery to work in the fields, yet they are free of weeds, laid out perfectly and huge. After a few stops through Pupuan we travelled to Lovina for lunch.
The restaurant was near the beach on the north coast of Bali. The sand is all black from the volcano eruption. I was craving some Noth American food, so we got burgers. After we ate, we walked out to the beach and dodged a lot of sales people. Its spectacular just how black the sand is on the beach. On our way off of the north coast we stopped near Gitgit where more monkeys hang out. This was not a monkey forest and they were not as controlled as they were in Alas Kedaton but they were tame and we could still feed them. There was one large monkey that intimidated the rest. He ate most of the food. The drive from Lovina to Gitgit was longer than I expected, and due to my small bladder, I was quite uncomfortable. When we got to the monkeys, it was just a stop on the side of the road but I couldn't wait any longer. They showed me a spot that was secluded and I went to do my business. I looked up and staring down at me was a monkey. The eye contact we made caused him to become quite vocal. This was not the situation I wanted to be in when I had a monkey encounter. Luckily, he left me alone.
We travelled a bit further and went to a fruit market. We tried snake skin fruit, rambutan, mangosteen, dragon fruit, pineapple and one fruit we did not catch the name of (my guess is sapodilla) - ****edit* it's a longan**** We bought some to take with us. They asked 120.000 ($12) and Chris obliged. Obviously this was a chance to bargain as the girls giggled and offered us two bananas as well. Our last stop was Lake Bratan to see Ulan Danu Beratan (temple on lake). This temple is recognized as the temple in which they pray to the God of prosperity as the lake provides the water for the rice fields. When we finished there, we began our long 2 hour journey back to Denpasar.
Supper was a buffet at the hotel. It was tradition Balinese food. I found it spicier than the other buffets. We sat outside and watched a Barong dance. One of the girls went around sh the end and invited some people to try the dance with her. Again, I did. And again, I was not my good!Baca lagi