Day Five:Tuesday May 25th 2010

Today we left the city of Legian to head north where we will stay in Ubud.Ubud is known as the art and culture capital of Bali and is nestled away from the hustle and bustle of Kuta.We hired Wayan again as our driver (at $50/day, you can't go wrong with a personal driver!)It's about an hour and a half ride from Legian to Ubud, so we drove directly there first thing in the morning to check in at the Tjampuhan Spa Resort.What a gorgeous place!The resort is nestled amongst the tropical hillside… talk about luxury!This is a place that caters to honeymooners and here we are 3 twenty-two year olds staying in our own villa and having the hotel staff wait on our every need!This is a first class place and it cost us less than $50/night per person!

We arrived before our rooms were ready, so we left them at reception and Wayan took us to Bakus for an elephant riding adventure! Here we went for about an hour ride through the Indonesian rainforest.We sat on a wooden seat resting on the Sumatran elephant's back for the majority of the ride, however I did get to experience the feeling of riding on his neck for a bit of the ride as the driver swapped with me and let me take over the "steering"!Our guide Echo (I'm sure this isn't how he spells it…) was hilarious and loved making "eh" jokes!He had come to Bali from Sumatra to work with the elephants ever since they had been brought to Bali.His father was an elephant keeper and he told us that he has been working with the amazing creatures since he was 5!After the ride, we had a chance to hold baby orangutans and check out some local snakes and birds.Our elephant adventure included a spaghetti lunch, so once we scarfed that down, we climbed aboard Wayan's van and headed off to view more wildlife at the "Mandala Wisata Wenara Wana" or Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary.

Here temples have been built to worship and make offerings to the forest and the plants and animals that live within it.About 35 male, 95 female and 170 young Balinese Macaques (also known as long-tail macaques) inhabit the forest.These little guys appear harmless at first, but can actually become pretty aggressive if provoked and have some decent sized teeth that they enjoy showing off when they feel threatened!They can also be little jokers as I quickly found out.I had one monkey begin climbing up my leg only to discover my tie on my shorts.I guess it looked like good fun, because once he pulled on the tie a whole gang of monkeys thought they would be helpful and try to undo my pants!I soon became entertainment for other visitors as 3 monkeys played with my shorts and another climbed on my head and began playing with my hair!I'm sure it was A-class entertainment because all I could do was laugh as Shannon tried to take pictures and then got hissed at when she attempted to help get the monkeys off me.Even the "monkey guard" was laughing at me!I absolutely loved the monkey sanctuary regardless!Anyone who goes to Bali and doesn't check out the monkey sanctuary is missing out!

After the sanctuary, we checked into our hotel, got a little refreshed and then met up with some friends from my residence at a restaurant called "Casa Luna".Great Indo food made with locally sourced produce and sold at a great price!