The Royal Water Palace and the Art Market!

It was a VERY lazy morning this morning. :)  That's what vacation are for though right?!  We left the hotel around 11am and headed for lunch at the vegan/vegetarian restaurant Bali Buddah, which was recommended to us by our friend Meg!  Bean burgers... yum!

We decided we wanted to try our hand at silver jewelry making (since it's the #1 thing to do in Ubud) and we had seen a silver making shop in the middle of nowhere a couple days ago during one of our drives, so we backtracked and made the trek back over there to check it out.  We were met by these 3 schmooches and their older sister who kept laughing and calling them "naughty boys"!  She called her dad, who makes the jewelry... He was out working in the rice fields and came up to meet us. Sadly, he doesn't offer classes but gave us directions to the two places that do offer them in Ubud, Perak Studio and Chez Monique. 

FYI: Perak Studios is $35 per person and you get 5 grams of silver.  Chez Monique is $40 per person and you get 10 grams of silver. We were too late to make today's class at Chez Monique, so we're scheduled to get some jewelry makin' done on Monday at 9:30am.  They charged us $40 total because we said we wanna make something together.  :)

Next stop was the Ubud Royal Water Palace - Puri Saren Agung.  

This was the palace of the Kings of Ubud until the 1940's and some of the royal descendants actually still live here.  It's the only temple that we went to that didn't have an entrance fee - another perk! :)  I LOVE this place.  

These doors lead into the worship area of the temple, which isn't open to the public for sightseeing, however if you're a Hindu and are interested in going in to worship, you're more than welcome to. 

I love finding flowers that I've never seen before!  Leave it to the Royal Palace to have such beautiful gardens.

What I would give to have been here when more of these beautiful lotus flowers were blooming in the pond!

One last photo for good measure... just to prove we were really there! :)

We went back to the hotel to cool off in the pool for a while.    

...and then got showered up and headed back to the Ubud Traditional Art Market for another round of perusing!

This time Aaron picked up a nylon hammock for $8.00 for us to use on our camping trip next month!

We finished off the day with a $2.00 dinner at this spot near the market.   I can't remember the name of it, but it's family owned and the food is fantastic, especially for the price!  The mom and grandmother do all of the cooking, and tonight we were in for a real treat!  The mom's 5 year old daughter not only professionally (yes, professionally) handed us our menus and bowed to us, she then danced around and sang while we ate. (sooo cute!)    

 After dinner we went next door to the tour agency and booked a whitewater rafting trip with a company called Payung for $20 each, instead of their usual $65 (including private air conditioned taxi to the river and back to our hotel, 2 hours of rafting with a trained guide, lunch and a shower)!  Man, I love traveling during the low season! 

Goa Gaja and the Traditional Art Market!

I hope you're not sick of seeing photos of temples yet, because there are temples galore around this place, and when you have two photographers together, you're gonna end up with a lot of pictures!  Today we checked out Goa Gaja, built in the 9th century (801-900), about 5-10 minutes south east of Ubud.

The temple and it's surroundings are nothing short of extraordinary.  It was believe by the early Balinese that this was the actual fountain of youth.  Ahhh, If only that were true!

Now the water that pours from the jars of these 3 maidens is considered to be holy water and used for purification in the ceremonies.

This Elephant Cave at the temple is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It's really dark inside and thick with the smoke of burning incense, but worth going in.  I won't tell you what's inside. You'll have to go and see it for yourself! :)

You can tell this place has been around for hundreds of years, because the trees here are GIGANTIC!  The roots themselves are almost as tall as I am! 

While we were standing at one of the fountains, we met a guy from California who told us about a secret pathway that leads down into the river below the temple.  Secret pathway?!  We're in!  It took about 20-30 minutes for us to navigate through the thick jungle, over fallen trees, under bamboo tunnels and along steep drop offs...

It was completely worth the climb up and down to see this river!

 After Goa Gaja, we scooted back to town and had lunch at Budi's Warung, a cute little spot, across the street from a restaurant we ate at a lot the last time we were in Ubud!  This was equally as cheap and delicious!

Since we were close to the traditional art market, we took a little stroll around to see what we could find!  I certainly wasn't interested in a wood carved penis bottle opener, which seems to be a popular product in this market (bottom left of this pic).  No idea why!

... and while $2.00 for a beautiful sarong is a steal of a deal, I think 4 is enough for one girl!  I used my restraint and passed up buying another.

Instead, I bought 2 beautiful beaded coin purse/bag thing-a-ma-jiggys.  1 for $3 and the other for $1.50!

We went back to Three Monkey for dinner tonight!  Where else can you have delicious food next to rice terraces in the middle of the city?!  We love it here, period.