Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
It was another beautiful day in Ubud. We started off our day with a tasty banana pancake and the usual plate of fresh fruit. The sagitarius has been a wonderful guesthouse. The grounds make us shake our heads in wonder as we discover something new- (a tucked away statue with flowers in it's ears) every time we walk through them. Today I noticed three lotus flowers blooming through the mud in a stone carved bird bath. Beautiful.
We hired a driver and went to the Gulung tample outside of Ubud. I remembered them as having lush jungle grounds with bridges and a river running through 11th century temples. These are quite something as they are carved out of stone cliffs deep in a beautiful valley. There are tombs carved out of the cliffs as well. It is obviously very old and it is still used by the Balinese.
Well the keyword here is DOWN in a valley.... There is one thing mom does not like and that is steps...I sort of forgot that there are a LOT of steps. to be exact there are about 240 steps just to get down, never mind all the steps down in the temple! Mom was quite amazing and actually did not seem overwhelmed by the steps as she was going down. The only other thing I forgot were all the women begging quite aggressively for us to buy their wares. Poor mom, it is so hard to continually say no. Anyway we toured the temples and then after an hour or so we began the ascent She did really well! All this walking is getting her in shape! She climbed up all 270 some steps ! And did not have a heart attack. I was quite worried, but she hardly needed time to recover. In fact by the time we walked a block and returned to the van, she was ready to shop! She bought four shirts!
We made a conservative estimate and realized she walked up over 400 various sized stone step that afternoon! Not bad for a 76 year old!
We ended the day with an hour's shopping while Terry read at the pool. It is cool that Terry has become an avid reader on this trip. Terry and I went for an herbal massage at Verona's in the rice view room. It was lovely! But we did look hilarious covered in green and brown herbs!
Mom showered and cuddled in our four poster canopied bed to read and relax!
When we got home we went to the restaurant attached to our hotel which has great food. We had homemade spinach ravioli filled with pumpkin in a creamy pesto sauce (so tender!), an exquisite Alfredo with homemade egg noodles (not quite as good as mom and Dad's), putanesca fettucine and a pesto feta, olive, basil, and sun dried tomatoes pizza (which Terry declared was "to die for!") and a unbelievable concoction of a fried potato latke topped off with diced avocados,tomatoes, cucumbers in a light vinaigrette! Add 2 beers and the whole thing cost $18.00!! Don't worry the portions weren't huge!
- comments