Life . . . Reframed: A Walk Through the Rice Paddies & the Monkey Forest

Dec. 10

Today we decided to try the path Wayan had told us about to get to Ubud. Anything would beat walking on that road - even potentially getting lost in rice fields! We managed to find the path, after a couple of misses, and it was a beautiful walk.

Glen in the rice paddies. This is the main
path to Ubud, not a normal trail through the
fields. An irrigation ditch runs beside it.

Irrigation ditch, walking path, then rice.

The Rice Field Temple - appropriately placed in the middle of the rice field

The Rice Field Temple from the sidewalk

Tables in the temple. I think that's where the
offerings go.

When Wayan took us out here the other day, there were a number of women coming up the path with these large trays of cement material on their heads, and others were doing some repair work on the little irrigation canals. It’s probably a never-ending job.

The village men and women carry these packages of what appears to
be dirt, which they create a cement mixture from and build little bridges
and the edges of the irrigation ditches. All by hand. In the blazing hot sun.

Junction in the irrigation system. They block off different spots to
direct the water. It's a complete mystery to me how it all works

I don't know the name of this plant, but Wayan says it's very important.
They use the leaves for the daily offerings. Mostly they are cut up
into small pieces for the fragrance. It's got a faint nutty smell

The large green leaf in the background is part of this daily offering.
These are made daily, by hand, usually several for each day.
More on them later.

Today we noticed several scarecrows, (note the one made out of a bag - there are a lot of those), and these crazy noisemakers made from pieces of palm tree and tin cans. They seem to do the trick as there weren’t a lot of birds to be seen.

http://youtu.be/Q94Olynmqmk

Scarecrow in the field with noisemakers in the background

Plastic bags, bits of cloth, pieces of palm, tin cans - all these
are part of the arsenal to keep the birds away. Compare that
to the guns going off all the time in the blueberry fields at home.

Bali Cultural Center at the end of the rice field path.

There is a rice field out back of our villa, but it was recently harvested, so doesn’t look like much. But these fields are full of rice that’s going to be ready to harvest soon - it’s very pretty and maybe a bit like wheat or barley.

These children are fishing in the irrigation ditch.
They are completely unsupervised by any adults.
No social services in sight.

There are irrigation canals all over the place, and mostly when you’re walking the rice paddies, you’re walking on raised up humps of grass. This particular path seems to be an elaborate exception. Watch out for holes in the pathway - you’ll fall into the irrigation ditch and probably break a leg or hip. I’ve noticed this on the sidewalks in town as well! Watch where you’re walking, and probably don’t try to walk around at night!

Large holes in sidewalks are the norm here. The holes are about 3 feet
deep and below this sidewalk is a stream. You could do some
serious injury to yourself if you're not careful. Walk with your eyes
on the ground here . . . always!

Pretty tree at the edge of the walk. Not sure
what the fruit is. I liked the shape of the
tree and the leaves.

Fence and little offering temple at the Balinese Cultural Center

Love these flowers I saw - Balinese Cultural Center

I honestly have no idea. One of the colourful
statues at the Bali Cultural Center.

We walked through town, bought a couple of things, and then walked to the Ubud Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary. I was expecting some ridiculous entrance fee to get in because it’s mentioned in every tourist brochure. It was a whopping $3. We splurged and went in - ha! It was absolutely magnificent . . . walking through Balinese jungle in many spots - there are monkeys all over the place, and they aren’t camera-shy. There is also a temple in the forest and a holy water river. Lots of statues and interesting things to look at.

The monkeys will climb right up your body to
get a banana. I didn't try it, but this brave
tourist did!

Chubby cheeks - hanging out by the
banana sales stand pays off quickly for
these little guys.

Well, I've never seen a monkey nursing. So I
took a picture. Hope the blog doesn't get
censored for this.

Protective mama.

Temple in the monkey forest

Holy water pool in the Monkey Forest Temple. There are fish in here.

Balinese jungle in the monkey forest. Tarzan would have
liked these vines - huge!

The river that feeds the holy water pool. Very pretty

If you look closely at the sign, you will notice
they request you don't wash your feet here! It
hadn't occurred to me until I saw the sign. Then
I wanted to :-)

Crazy root system

Very elaborate bridge to the temple. Notice the banyan behind
Glen - massive.

Just because I thought this was hilarious

After about four hours of walking, we decided to head home for a swim and a game of backgammon.

We checked our e-mail, and there is some bad news about Glen’s dad. He’s fallen and broken his hip, so he's back in the hospital. I guess we’ll wait to see what the doctors say before we make any travel decisions. For now, we’re hoping he’ll pull through this, and the family back home will see him through it. And my girlfriend’s son has gone missing in Campbell River - he went for a hike two days ago, and hasn’t been seen since. It’s challenging being half a world away when there are things happening at home that I’d like to help with.