me and a heavy python in front of tanah lot! my heart was beating fast and i'm trying not to look scared! crazy how her whole body is just pure muscle and i could feel her passing over my neck like a heavy wave. she was raised by the young balinese boy on the left since she was the size of a pencil. he feeds her 10 chickens a month. the
world's longest python in captivity (49 feet) eats dogs and happens to be in another part of indonesia.
tanah lot temple during low tide. during high tide, it's completely surrounded by water and harder to invade because you can't walk up to it. my sister had a photo of this place by her bedside from an old book and i've wanted to go there because it looked so magical. the book didn't say where it was though so i was extra surprised and happy to have found it. we didn't get to go up to the temple but walking around on the wet dirt and rocks was like being on another planet. there's beautiful pools of water and the dirt is striped and shaped so oddly because of the seawater.
my first time eating durian (the spiky yellow fruit). it wasn't as stinky as i thought it'd be but it's really rich and creamy and i couldn't eat more than a few bites... not sure if i like it... i like mangosteen better (the round deep purpley red fruit) which is really hard to find here in the states. the number of petals on the flower like shape on the bottom of a mangosteen fruit tells you how many segments of the lychee like fruit is inside.
wild monkeys off the side of the road! there were a LOT. and they're mean. cute but, mean. we fed them fruit.
traditional balinese offerings that you see everywhere and every mother teaches their children how to make... it's all made from young coconut leaves and tiny bamboo pieces to hold it together. all you need is a knife. look at the woven ones. sometimes they put raw rice in them and steam it. i spent over an hour with a balinese woman trying to learn how to make one and my hands were too clumsy. she also tried to teach me how to make a woven one that looks like a bird and some other ones... i brought them all home and now they're all brown, dried up and moldy but i love them.
we rode elephants at the
elephant safari park!! i LOVE elephants!!! these are rescued sumatran elephants and now i'm biased but i think sumatrans are the cutest. i even didn't mind the high-contrast dots on their noses which i usually have a fear of (they gross me out). elephants are one of the most amazing, sensitive, intelligent animals... there's an
amazing elephant orphanage in kenya. read this
heartbreaking story.
our elephant was hungry and she kept holding the line up by stopping to eat. she even pulled up a whole tree while trying to grab a branch. ha.
the aftermath.
we fed them afterwards.
the best part was getting to pet a sleeping baby elephant!! they had 2 at the park. one was 5 days old. one was 3 weeks old. boy and a girl. they're SO CUTE!!! they're not soft though. looks like soft downy hair, but it's kind of thick and rough... their toenails are soooo cute and perfect! watching them play and headbutt the caretakers and climb all over them was funny. im sure that can't last for a while. i want a baby elephant!!!
on top of a boat sunbathing.... short ride for a snorkel journey...
wish i there still! right now i'm looking out at the cloudy weather and looking at my never ending to-do list... oh well. back to work! :)
oh yeah, i forgot to share other things. other highlights: visiting the balinese healer man, giant bed in one our hotels the size of 2 king size beds, white water rafting which was more like brown water floating, balinese shadow puppet show (it was about 45 mins. too long but, def. one of my fave things. i brought home some puppets too... one is a naked chubby man holding a knife and the other is a black bull with a flower in its ear), interesting vegetation everywhere including something called an elephant ear leaf that i used as an umbrella for the mist when we hiked to a waterfall , rice paddies, cooking lesson where we made soup, chicken satay, fish wrapped in banana leaves, green crepe like thing w/ coconut for dessert and handmade peanut sauce using a stone mortar and pestle and getting cheap massages... i don't know why we didn't get more.... balinese people are good people. i like them.
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