Off on another adventure today about 40 minutes north of Ubud we come to Taro. It is a temple-making village which is a good business here as every Balinese home has a temple in their yard. As we wind on down the road it appears we're going deep into the jungle. Lush, green vegetation and many palm trees. Nearing the park there are signs to slow due to elephants crossing. We have just arrived at Bali's Elephant Safari Park. Which I only recently learned of through a glossy magazine I was perusing at the local library. Many celebrities (before us, ha ha) have been to the park. Julian Lennon, Claudia Schiffer/David Copperfield, Jessican Biel, David Beckham, Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Segal among many others. Upon arrival we are quite taken by the natural beauty of the park with several streams full of a large variety of colorful carp. We are ushered on down for the 1:00 o'clock show. Elephants shooting hoops with a basketball, younger elephants kicking goals with a soccer ball, oldest elephant doing hula-hoops with his trunk and a few other interesting tasks were performed. Unfortunately, we missed the elephants creating abstract art (paintings) in the morning. Nigel and Yanie Mason opened the park in 2000 after rescuing many Sumatran elephants from the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. Due to clearcut logging the jungle is down to about 10% of it's original size. These poor elephants would not have survived in Sumatra under these conditions. There numbers are rapidly dwindling there. So, in opening this amazing place the Masons have saved the lives of 27 of these majestic creatures. We feed the elephants peanuts (which were there faves) bananas and some palm. Their skin felt extremely rough to the touch and their hair was prickly. They'd turn the ends of their trunks up near the treat apply a little suction and we would just drop the peanuts in. We also fed them the bananas right on their tongue, felt very strange indeed! Many people were taking advantage of rides through th park.

After our enjoyable afterooon we fly (or so it seemed) back to Ubud and delight in a spicy vegetable curry dish served with a nutty tasting red rice in our favorite little restaurant peacefully tucked away down a quiet lane......