Ubud, Monkeys and Sharp Objects.

I just got back to Kuta from Ubud. I have to say it was a nice 3 days.

Ubud is up in the mountains, surrounded by terraced rice patties and winding river valleys. However, it is not a destination you visit for the nightlife. After going to bed at 10 pm 3 nights in a row, I had enough. The activities during the day are just wandering the town, looking at shops and visiting temples in the jungle.

One of the cool local attractions is a monkey forrest. If you have ever heard my stories about India, I might have told you about the monkeys there. No matter how cute monkeys look, in reality they are vicious little beasts. The monkeys in India were psychotic kleptomaniacs. Women had to take their earrings out before they went near them or else the monkeys would tear them out.

The Ubud monkeys were much nicer. They would only attack you for your food. I saw a monkey jump a Dutch woman looking for the cookie hidden in her pocket. They are funny to watch, though. They just play fight the whole time, jump on each other's backs and knock each other off stairs. When they get bored with that they end up going to torture the few deer who live in a pen in the forrest, jumping on their backs and stealing their food. Its like a Three Stooges episode.

After I visited the Monkey Forrest, there was not much to do in town, and getting bored, I decided to try to improve my self by taking a class in local skills. For some reason, instead of taking a nice course in Balinese Instruments or Cooking, I decided to do wood carving.

Now, to educated those of you not in the Levine Clan, our family has a bit of a dicey history with sharp objects. There are several stories, one involving a tennis ball, another involving vegetables, which ended in trips to the hospital for those involved. Therefor, putting a razor sharp chisel in one hand and a heavy wooden mallet in the other might not have been the smartest move.

Now, if we had been using a proper workbench, I might have only been at risk of loosing a finger. However, how the Balinese do woodcarving is sitting on the floor. They sit, holding the piece of wood between their feet, legs bent at 90 degrees and knees to the ground, hunched over like they were stretching their groin. Now, try doing that. For the women out there, did it hurt? Men, I'm not even going to ask you if it hurt, because more than likely you are slaying to your self that its impossible for anybody with external reproductive organs.

Anyway, instead of possibility of coming back from this trip known as Nine Finger Noah, with a minor slip I might have taken out an ankle, a knee, or a much more important piece of equipment.

I escaped with only a minor scrape on my foot. It was fun though, although my piece of wood only came out OK with the great help of the instructor, who was some sort of contortionist the way he sat.

Anyway, back in Kuta now, I think I will spend the week before I leave sitting by the pool, relaxing before the craziness of Hong Kong and Japan.