Out early today for a 1 1/2 hour drive to the UNESCO-protected area west of Ubud. Rolling hills are covered with terraced rice fields as far as the eye can see and UNESCO (feel free to use Wickipedia in the resource list at the left to look it up!) wanted to ensure that this land wasn’t transformed from its current beautiful state into hotels and villas for the booming tourist and ex-pat industries. Truly breathtaking and I needed to ask Edmund for a little help in framing the pictures to their best advantage. Set off for a walk – I was told to follow the trail and wind around, but after about 3 minutes I was lost and off the path. Not to worry, though. Between every section of rice there are grassy walls, so if I walked carefully along the top (thanks for the balance work Christine!) I could zigzag my way across the field. You can see in the third photo what I mean. Anyway, hopped a couple of rivers and said hi to a few cows that were tied up under little sheds dotting the fields and finally found my destination. Hard work that, and coming from a land where water is a scarce commodity, I must say that seeing it bubble up from the ground in various spots and through little gullies and continually running through the patches and fields is amazing. Who ever figured out how to engineer that with no pipes or fancy sprayers?