And back to Ubud

On the final day of our trip in Bali, we drove back to Ubud, via a Hindu temple. We parked up on the opposite side of the lake and commissioned two canoes to take us across and into the temple.

Literally seconds after we stepped out of the canoe, Chloe and I were grabbed by some Javanese men, their arms put round us and cameras taken out. I wouldn't have minded this at all, apart from the fact that they didn't ask, but just grabbed us like we were objects, less than animals. So we stopped the photos from being photos, shook our fists and growled. Well not really. But we did get away without our images being violated and a few angry glares.

Once we were actually allowed to look around the temple it was a little bit of a disappointment. It was so full of tourists, unlike the other temples we had seen which we just us and the locals, that it didn't have the peace and mystery that I felt in the other places. It felt like the gods had left the place long ago, and it was just a sell out show.

Back in Ubud, I really felt like I wanted to stay. It's such a lovely town, with great people, and such a good atmosphere. Every other shop is an art shop, there are beautiful bamboo restaurants serving delicious food, the locals sit around playing guitar, excited to just chat to you, with no ulterior motive. However the last night was a little bit...interesting...

Chloe was staying in a homestay with a friend of our group leader - Wayan - so that night we went out with him to a reggae bar. There was a really good live reggae band, with the worlds happiest singer, people were losing themselves dancing and there was just a great holiday atmosphere. Though annoyingly, one of the guys we were talking to sat down next to me and kept edging closer and closer. I kept edging away until I was squashed up against Chloe, but he didn't get the message and sooner or later was practically sitting on top of me and staring intently at me, despite the fact I was facing the other way. I felt quite uncomfortable. In this kind of situation in London, Hong Kong, or any other Western country it wouldn't have been a big deal, but when you're in a place where the culture is so different from your own, it's hard to know what people's agenda is or how they will react to things.

Then, a the biggest Balinese guy I had ever seen, covered with tattoos as far as his forehead and lots of big gold jewellery came along. He was Wayan's friend. Earlier in the day Chloe had met him, and a Dutch lady had told her to stay away from him as he was "bad news", but he seemed nice enough, and his presence seemed to scare the other guy away so I was happy! However, when it got to the end of the night he was so insistent on taking me home, it was kind of unnerving. We had to pretend that Chloe needed to get something from mine, but even then he followed us half way there and was very difficult to dissuade. We had to get Wayan to come with us so that Chloe would be okay going back on her own. So as much as Ubud was lovely during the day, at night, things were a little bit on the worrying side.