Yesterday we put the wrong date on the blog, so please don't be too confused!
After breakfast we met our driver at 9.00 am for our day out. This cost 500,000 Rupiats (about £34.50 for an eight hour day with the car). The traffic on Sunday morning was much lighter and we made good time up country. Our first stop was to see a batik factory where the beautiful decoration work is done by hand, colouring in outlines stamped on to the cloth with wooden patterns. We made a few purchases and moved on to our next stop, a gold & silver works where we saw a lady applying tiny silver beads not much larger than grains of sand, to a brooch. Stop number three was our first temple where you make a donation and are lent a sari so that you enter the site properly dressed. I say site as the temple was comprised of a number of buildings over a large open area. Most of Bali is Hindu, but quite different from Hinduism in India. Everywhere in Bali one sees little trays with a flower or fruit and sometimes an incense stick left as as an offering to the gods - these will be in the street, outside shops or just tucked away in a corner. We were at this Temple at 11.00am so we observed the two minutes silence - in a lovely place.
Our next two stops were at a wood carvers - Bali is justifiably famous for this work - then an art studio where the work is more artisan than artist.
We then pulled up to be charged 10,000 Rupiats ( 65p) each to get out of the car to see the terraced rice paddies fed by canals that cascade the water down level by level so everyone's crop has its fair share. This was quite a small area and not the terraces seen in so many posts cards which must be somewhere else on the island.
The car had been climbing for some time and continued for another half hour until the volcano came in sight (25,000 Rupiates this time) with its top shrouded in smoke and low cloud. This is still a little active but not violently so. We stopped here for lunch and the smoke cleared to show the lake that was probably the crater in eons passed. Our driver then coasted back down the road until he turned off down a steep one car lane that led down to a valley with our second temple - a beautiful place with small lakes filled with fish and little shrines scattered here and there.
We arrived back at the hotel around 6pm having fought our way back through the traffic yet again!
After a swift beer we shower & change ready to go & eat. We decide to stay at the restaurant attached to the Hotel where we end up joining in Vern's 60th birthday party. A riotous but very enjoyable evening.