Headed out today to view Batur, the volcano that I will be hiking on Monday as well as the one I won’t, Ganung Agung. The latter last erupted in 1963 and caused a terrible mess. Anyway, Made and I headed out driving through villages and down back little roadways – always lined with little shops and gates of varying intricacy that mark the entrance to another family compound. First stop is a very old Temple from the 16th century (I’ll fill in the name later!). Made fixed my sarong properly and sent me on my way – follow the yellow brick road, as it were. Just like at DisneyWorld, I had to walk past all the vendors and hawkers on the way into the entrance. Down, down, down about 300 steps to arrive at the great stone edifice, set among lush greenery, although I would not say outright gardens. Walked around and was lucky enough to pass by a little group with their own tour guide – all speaking French! Of course I pretended just to be walking around, but was listening in all the while. Back up the long and winding (road) steps and so happy to hop into the air-conditioned van. Off to the park that contained the volcanoes and ate lunch perched on the side of the road looking out at the peaks. Tried a little snakeskin fruit which was hairy on the outside but white, wet and succulent on the inside. Tasted citrusy. Headed out once again with a touch of the itis (for those of you not familiar with that word: food coma). Stopped in the rain at a local spice, coffee, cacao farm. They even grow tapioca over here! Watched the demonstration of the family roasting and grinding the cacoa. Then sampled their ginger and lemongrass teas and their hot chocolate drink. Did NOT sample coffee: been there, done that for sure (and with some real coffee snobs). Walked into the spice store and f***ing scored with some wicked big bags of saffron, which is picked locally. When I told the woman how much it goes for in the US, she said she should raise her prices. I replied that if you add in the plane ticket to get here, it really isn’t that cheap. Anyway, hit the road again and headed back to our not so sleepy little village. Finally had a little afternoon time in town to finish my shopping, home for a quick shower and out again for a too-quick dinner and over to the palace to see the Lagong dance in the outdoor pavilion. The dances were so cool (there’s that word again). Liked them much more than the fire dance. About 5 in all, ranging from one to six women (one with a man dressed as a woman and the other with a man doing a masked dance). The Balinese dancing is all about the jerky head movements, the incredibly beautiful hand movements (and the way they hold their fingers – curved out the wrong way) and their eye movement. Gold-threaded sarongs, gold filigree crowns of differing shapes with different flower arrangements in each one, and always the super long hairstyle. Just beautiful. Really. Watching them perform under the open sky, surrounded by old stone walls, fantastically carved statuary and garden growth everywhere – it was magical. I was really in Bali. And once again experiencing the incredible feeling of having a dream come true. It’s awesome!!!!