Saturday 10th. May 2014
We woke just before 9:30am and had breakfast. We then wandered slowly down Monkey Forest Road to the Monkey Forest. We paid the Rp30,000 each and were soon confronted by hundreds of monkeys, all wanting to be fed. We took a lot of photos and at about 2:30pm walked back up Monkey Forest Road and did a little shopping and had a coconut drink.

I had my first photographic catastrophe when I dropped the case containing my new prime 105mm lens. The lens cap became wedged against the UV filter, shattering it. When I get home, I will have to see if someone can remove the old UV filter frame which is still stuck in the lens. Thankfully the lens seems to be undamaged.
Had dinner at the Three Monkeys Restaurant just down the road from the hotel

Sunday 11th. May 2014
Another day with Yande today, and so that meant a 4:45am start. We drove to Sanur Beach and set up our equipment and waited for the sun to come up. I was happy with many of the photos I took. We left Sanur beach just after 7:00am. It was hot and humid and I was dripping in perspiration.

Yande drove us to a typical family compound and explained how the whole family lives together behind a large stone/brick wall.
We then drove back to Ubud where we had breakfast at our hotel (9:15 - 10:15am).
We then drove past numerous rice fields and photographed two women planting rice.

We then climbed up the outer side of a volcano and then down into the crater and to Lake Kintamani. We took photos of the lake and the neighbouring Mt Batur.

From there we drove to the spectacular Tegalalang Rice Terraces and took many more photos.

From there we went to a cleansing ceremony at the Tirta Empul Temple, and finally we briefly visited a waterfall at Blahbatuh.

We arrived back at the hotel at about 3:00pm and discovered that we had been upgraded to a new room, because a group of Japanese is expected tomorrow and our room is required... and since we had requested a late check out and this conflicted with the hotel's bookings we were up graded.

We had dinner at the Wayan Cafe (Nasi Goreng, soup, 2 small Bintang beers = Rp200,000).

Monday 12th. May 2014
Another slow day today. We were woken by the sound of rain on the roof and were dogged by heavy showers. We  walked up Monkey Forest Road checking out the art shops. We finally bought two abstract paintings from the Alit Art Gallery. We negotiated the price down from Rp1.5 million down to Rp1 million (A$92.67), which seemed like a good transaction. We then took cover as another heavy shower of rain drenched us.

In afternoon we wandered back up Monkey Forest Road and had a Balinese massage. The cost was Rp110,000 each, but we negotiated a 20% discount which brought the cost of our two one hour massages to Rp175,000. As it was our last day and we had a little spare Indonesian cash we gave a Rp75,000 tip.
Made, our friendly taxi driver who greeted us daily at the end of the hotel driveway drove us to the airport at 6:00pm (late checkout time). We had negotiated a "special rate" of Rp250,000, but we gave him Rp300,000. We could have caught the 6:00pm bus to the airport for Rp60,000 each.
Exit visas at the airport were Rp200,000 each and that pretty well cleared us out of cash.
It will be nice to walk the streets of home without constantly being asked "Taxi, Sir?? .. Taxi?? ... very cheap!

                                                                These and other photos can be found HERE