Pura Luhur Uluwatu is one of Bali's holiest temples, situated on top of a cliff jutting out over the Indian Ocean. This particular temple is home to hoards of monkeys. Sure, they look pretty cute, but one of them made a running leap onto Mom's back and snatched her eye glasses before running off. I had just turned around and had one of those slow motion "NOOOOOOOO!!!" moments as I saw it all unfold. It was pretty scary, because that monkey was big--way bigger than a big balled bat, I tell you. Some locals loitering about with sticks retrieved the glasses. Afterwards I definitely looked at the monkeys in a different light, casting a wary (stink) eye on them like I would a gang of gypsy children or obviously crazy people on the subway.
We also went to the GWK cultural park and events center with a 146m statue of the Hindu god Vishnu and his sacred ride, the half man, half bird Garuda. The statues are not complete, but when completed, it will be the world's largest.
And no vacation would be complete without a massage! We had a traditional Balinese body scrub and aromatherapy massage at the Inna Bali Beach, a resort that is a little past it's glory days of luxury. It was definitely more relaxing than it's more abusive counterpart, the Thai massage, which if you remember, had left me bruised and sore...
At my special request, we got to taste the Balinese national dish, babi guling, or roasted suckling pig at a roadside restaurant. It was pretty tasty, but I have to admit I was expecting to see a whole pig roasting on a spit and pieces getting sliced right off. Yeah, that's not how it works. I'm not sure when they actually roasted the thing, but I know for sure it wasn't when we were there. I also got to eat sate (satay) a few times--nothing beats grilled chunks of meat with peanut sauce!
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