Woke up at about 8am. I have officially become accustom to this time change. Had a good breakfast of banana pancake, aka banana crepe and some java tea. The weather was pretty terrible during breakfasts, so as soon as it broke i jumped on the scooter to see what i could find. Turns out I found those famous rice patties from the pictures you see when you google Bali. They are actually amazing. I took a bunch of photos and kept moving. I saw a great photo I wanted to take across from a Hindu Temple so I stopped, but as soon as I did it started pouring rain again. So i ran ran to the temple performance area where there were men carving what looked like intricate flowers into wood trim. The locals were extremely inviting and told me to take pictures of them. It was so genuinely nice of them. They told me to go up on the stage an play the instruments. One of them showed me a few things and i tried to follow his lead. One of them told me to check out the temple next door, so i followed a women who was willing to give me a tour. She spoke almost no English so we just traded sounds and smiles for a bit. Eventually i ventured off on my own. All of a sudden the weather turned and i was stuck under some holy offering area. My tour guide was on the other side of the property. We exchanged smiles for about 20 minutes as I took pictures of what I could. When the rain finally stopped we met and she offered to take pictures of me ringing a giant bell or giving some sort of a offering to a god. I humbly refused and motioned for the exit. She removed my sarong. I was planing on giving her some money for her time, but before i could get the wallet out of my pocket she asked for Rupiah(Dollars). I gave her about $5 and took off. What I thought was an offer to show me something close to her heart was only a way to buy some rice. That is when i realized that this whole culture is being sold to us $5 at a time. Its almost like they keep nothing sacred for themselves. Its actually really sad. There temples are photo ops for giant buses of western cattle that treat it like it is something unique. it is unique to us, but for how long until we find something else we can find to exploit. But who really is doing the exploiting? If it wasn't for sale we couldn't be able to buy it. But if we wernt offering millions they wouldn't feel the pressure to sell it. Who knows who's fault it is I just know I don't like it. From there I rode back into Ubud and had an Iced coffee and a sandwich. Both were great. i spent a few hours by the pool and finished a book by David Sedaris. His style of writing is refreshingly dry and sarcastic. Later I woke up for dinner and a great show at the biggest temple in Bali, the Ubud palace. About 100 cattle and I enjoyed a show that ended at 9pm. For some reason i was able to drink a Bintang. It felt wrong but i didn't really care. Rode my scooter home with a three beer buzz to start a Henry Rollins book before I fell asleep.
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