Bali for a month : July 2013

Hubby and I did a jewellery class one day. We got picked up by a driver and it was about 10 minutes out of Ubud at a studio owned by a lady called Ayu who was the jeweller. She also offered Balinese dancing, fruit carving, wood carving, mask making. We were the only two in our class and it was very hands on. Ayu helped me design a frangipani ring however I wasn't happy with the results as it looked like a piece of tin foil hahaha....the silver content just wasn't enough to make a ring with my design so even though she is supposedly very good she didn't design something appropriate for the amount of silver supplied. Hubby made a pendant which turned out better than my ring. The cost was $35.00 each and it was very interesting even though the end result wasnt great. Ayu has a 14 year old disabled son who was at the studio and we chatted to her about life. We later met her American boyfriend out the front while we were waiting for the driver to arrive. We saw two swiss girls learning the Balinese dancing and it was a very hot day and I was glad we weren't doing that even though they looked lovely and were having fun.

Ayu

Hubby concentrating on his creation

Reception area at Greenfields.

One of the many colourful shops I passed on my walk around to Monkey Forest Road.

Having dinner at Cinta Bar with a new friend we made.

Later that afternoon I lay in my room reading with the little windows open letting the light in and I could hear the cicada's, birds calling and in the distance drums and gamelan music...it was so beautiful I had to pinch myself to see if it was real.

The next few days were spent relaxing, reading, massages, yoga classes, eating, swimming and having a wonderful time in Ubud. Samara and I tried a yoga class with hanging belts....very different...We spent lots of afternoons reading books in the airconditioned room after being out in the morning in the heat. We visited Periplus book shop many, many times to buy books as Samara was such a fast reader. We both read all threee books of the Hunger Games series and both of us enjoyed them.

this actually made me feel sick.....hahaha...

After Hubby left Samara and I got a driver to take us to Candi Dasa where we had booked Bayshore Villas for one night. We were going to visit Tirta Ganga on the way however Samara had a sore ear since the previous day so we decided to go straight to Candi Dasa. Unfortunately the weather that day turned extremely windy due to supposedly the cyclone in the north west of Australia. Candi Dasa was lovely and the villa gorgeous (really just a room not a villa) which was right on the beach front but due to the weather being so windy we could not walk or swim at the beach and that evening I even decided we could not go out on the scooter we had hired as it was so windy and gusty. In the late afternoon I had gone for a ride and found it quite scary to be riding in such wind so we stayed in for dinner and the next morning just lay around the pool as it was still very windy. I did go for a walk up the main street and did a little shopping but all in all we were very happy to be back in Ubud by that afternoon. On the way home (well out of the way) we visited Tirta Ganga which I really loved, so pretty and was glad I went, as I have wanted to visit there for a few years.

Main pool at Bayshore villas

its quite a large pool.

from our room (villa)

from the villa closest to the ocean...no 1 we were in no 2 and wished we were in no 1 until the ocean got really wild that night and then we were happy to be in no 2!!!