September 11,

We were both awake by 0630, but stayed in bed until they started working. The owners are doing a major addition to their space. I don’t know if it’s an extension of their home or another room for boarders. Yesterday a bunch of ladies were carrying gravel up from the road to be part of the foundation I assume… many hands make for “a job done.” (I changed the quote because the original ending “for light work,” just doesn’t seem appropriate.) Anyway, shoveling began this morning at 0700. The sun was shining and just a few clouds were dancing in the sky, but no rain! So we readied and both had Hot Chocolate. I did not have coffee in case I had to try more than one, but I needed to get some today. We had breakfast of Muesli, yogurt and bananas.

Around 0930 we set out. Google maps warned of possible Bali floods from all the rain! We were going to Ubud Coffee Roastery. Jeff had found this one. It had great reviews and has the name of the city, so it should be the definitive one. Right? We arrived without any floods. Jeff left me off to go park the car. (The main parking area was beyond the coffee shop. The car rental guy told Jeff not to park on the street… the car might get towed away!)

Anyway, I arrived and saw bags of coffee to buy – that’s a good sign. At my turn to order, I got a Barong Blend, which is described as full body, dark chocolate, with sweet and long aftertaste. She said the beans come from Java Island. So that makes it Java Java. HEE-HEE!!🤣😂 My first sip was delightful and I was in heaven!!! A couple who had been standing around, asked me how it was and I was not afraid to tell, since I liked it! They don’t drink coffee, but want to buy some for one of their fathers. I told them if he likes good-flavored, black, strong coffee; they should be okay getting this for him. Just as I was saying this, the guy behind the counter thanked me. I told him if I had not liked it, I would have told them otherwise. He gave me a thumbs up! I was just finished and was getting set to buy a bag if they could grind it. They did so we left, walking back to the car to stash my coffee.

Next we set out walking to go to the “Ubud Palace: Puri Saren Agung.” It was free! The place used to be a Royal Palace of the Ubud royal family. Now it is more of a temple area around a nice garden. It is for walking around and gazing. There were signs everywhere banning climbing steps, or no entrance into the temples. We were there… maybe ten minutes?? It was a gorgeous day for it, even though there was not much there-there. We were heading back to the car and ducked into a chocolate shop. It was good, but only came as “crumbles” in packages and was a hefty price for eating by itself. We decided against buying any and found our car.

We set out to go to a mountain overlook. It would be the day for it. But as we got closer, we were sidetracked, seeing many foreigners. I found on Google Maps a nearby temple complex, so we opted to give it a go. The roads there showed signs of flooding, but were dry now. We did stop to get some gas for our car. Jeff only put 100,000 IDR in – which is $6.10. We moved on and arrived at Pura Tirta Empul, the temple complex. It was busy. We paid 75,000 IDR ($4.58) each for entry. We entered and explored. We came to the crowded area. Everyone had to put on a sarong to enter here- men & women. This was the “Spiritual Cleansing” part of the complex. There was a pool that many people in special green sarongs were going into. Along one wall of the long pool were fountains spewing water and the people were lined up to get doused in the streams. It was interesting to watch. The largest percentage, if not all, were foreigners. We walked about the rest of the complex. There was another pool but it was of decorative fountains and held fish. Again most places were off limits unless you were Hindu and there to pray.

After we finished, we returned our borrowed sarongs and had to go through the gauntlet of tourist’s shops to exit the complex to our car. To exit the lot we had to pay a 10,000 IDR (61 cents) parking fee. We drove back the 39 minutes of ten crazy miles to our place; parked; then walked to Bella Tacos. We had a Chips and Dips appetizer; a main of three Tacos- two crispy and one soft, all chicken; and another main of a Burrito with beef. It was soo good! The salsa and pico de gallo could have used more zing. But overall quite excellent. Jeff had a beer and I had a smoothie called monkey business. It had peanut butter, banana, and soy milk. (I should have just had Coke.) Anyway, we paid 313,000 IDR or $19.09. As we were eating, a Tokay Gecko peeking out at us. It was probably 8 inches long!! It was beautiful with golden eyes. I kept my eye on it because it was so big!!

We stopped at a little shop, the bread place, and went back to our place – later, had a snack supper of pears. It was a good day! No rain and no floods!