expiration date 

today is the day we move to another hotel. we’re going to be staying in Ubud for the next two nights. aina was broken hearted that she had to leave Adi Dharma… of course, she doesn’t know that our next hotel is probably 10 times nicer — with 10 times the price, too.

after a teary episode in the morning, and aina basically kissed almost all the furnitures in the room, we left the hotel. based on Ario’s suggestion, we take a full-day tour on the day of the move carrying all our stuff with us in the car. this is to avoid wasting time on moving things. so, today’s itinerary would be everything between Kintamani and Ubud.

we skipped the whole “craft-shopping” tour except for two stops: the batik and the wood carving.at the batik shop, i got a scarf and a few sarongs. ari was looking for batik shirt, but couldn’t find one he likes.

the wood carving one was interesting to see (probably because we’ve been into wood-carving lately), but we didn’t end up buying anything.

we then drove straight up to see the Mount Batur and Kintamani Lake. too bad, by the time we reached the top, the sky has been covered by the clouds and we can barely see the pretty lake. so, we ended up having lunch at one of the restaurants facing the mountain and took a few pictures.

during our lunch, we can see the rain is coming… it looks like a curtain of rain coming towards us. it was sweeping through the mountain and the lake, covering what’s behind it with a foggy layer of whites.

by the time we finished our lunch, the rain arrived at the restaurant. we drove back down and passed through small roads. we found a house (said is owned by a wealthy local, because they use the expensive red bricks for the building) celebrating a wedding. that below is a local wedding decoration:

we passed by forest and rice paddy fields. aina was curious about rice and where it came from, so we stopped by one of the rice field, and Pak Made — our driver — pulled one stem of the paddy and gave it to aina. he took one grain and open the chaff by hand to show the rice grain underneath. aina was impressed… and ate the rice grain immediately. she also kept the whole paddy stem all the way to singapore (we still have it at home now).

after that, Pak Made took us to see the Sebatu Temple (Pura Gunung Kawi Sebatu), a beautiful temple tucked in the middle of a small wooded valley. it was really pretty… too bad that i was having my period, and because the temple is a pure and sacred place, they don’t allow women with their period to enter the compound. so i stayed up in the parking lot, while ari and aina looked around the temple.

there are geese, ducks and kijang (small local deer) that you can feed. naturally, that becomes aina’s highlight of the day… “and the kijangs were very gentle, too!”.

the rest of the temple is very pretty. lots of greens and water.

there is a natural spring water flowing into the pools in the temple. this explains how clear the water are… so clear that it looks like the fish are floating and swimming under a glass. what a breathtaking view…

i was falling asleep in the car waiting for aina and ari (and had a lovely dream, too!). once they were all done, we took off to tegalalang to see the rice terrace in that area. i wish i could see the larger rice terrace in the Tabanan area, but it was too far off. so, Tegalalang will do. aina get to wear one of those weed hat :)

despite the pushy gift craft sellers, the rice terrace was beautiful… we stopped by a few different places and take pictures.

after all that, we drove back to Ubud and were dropped at the hotel we’ll be staying for the next two nights: Komaneka @ Bisma… but that deserve a whole entry for itself :)

for the rest of today’s photos, they’re all in Kintamani + Sebatu + Tegalalang photo album.