Ubud, Bali and blog makeover

     Friday May 8th we made our way back to Bali on Eka Jaya, one of the fast boat services from Gili Air. I had a nice chat with Omar, one of the boat guys, who said he hoped to study English some more and get his captain's license. I hope he succeeds as he's a very nice kid. Heartening!

     Then we got the shuttle that was supposed include taking us to our hotel but he stopped in the middle of Ubud and made us all get out to get taxis the rest of the way to our hotels. When there weren't any taxis he then squeezed everyone for another 50,000 Rupiah each to finish the job. I was pretty mad, but since it cost me about $3.50 US it wasn't worth a hassle. That kind of crap is my least favorite thing about traveling in The East though. No picture for him!

    We're staying at The Studios, which are fabulous compared to our previous accommodations in Indonesia so far. Ubud is generally cleaner and has been more enjoyable, despite the lack of beach. We walked around a bit, got massages and picked up some groceries for our new kitchen! Making our own yummy breakfast is a joy! The pool is wonderful and it overlooks some gorgeous rice paddies.

     Saturday we went to Antonia Blanco's house, the wonderful museum of the so-called "Dali of Bali". Mostly lots of great paintings of naked Balinese women in fantastical custom made frames. Besides the beautiful building and grounds they had many pretty parrots and other exotic birds, such as this lovely hornbill, both in cages and loose on the grounds. A moment later he took a huge dump but missed me, thankfully.

     In the afternoon we had some lunch at Murni's Warung, which was delish, then walked around some more, got yet another massage, had ribs at the Glove & Stove next door and finally crashed. Today for Mother's Day (!) we went to the Monkey Forest, which was really fun. Those little guys are so cute, if occasionally somewhat terrifying. They have some BIG TEETH. For real.

     I was pretty afraid I would accidentally step on someone's tail and lose a piece of my leg. They were everywhere underfoot, climbing on people, trying to get anything that looked like it might have food in it, and generally humping up a storm. The folks there are trying to preserve the environment there and are doing a good job. The jungle was just spectacular. There were were some awe inspiring trees, such as these:

     There were also some super funny moments like them cannonballing into their pond:

     They also had some cute Timorese deer (Lord knows why) that made a pretty funny noise:

     Afterwards we walked around that part of town and came back for a homemade pasta dinner that couldn't be beat and made a bunch of changes to the blog template for web & phone. Do you use your PC or phone? Did you notice? We hope you like it. We want more people to see & follow our Facebook & Instagram feeds since that seems to be where all the comments go.

     Speaking of comments, we really want to reach more people, share more adventures and interact with our friends, followers, and fellow travelers, so please drop us a line? While I'm asking pretty please, if you could share and/or like our Facebook page and generally point your pals to our blog, we will be ever so grateful. Thanks!