Drive North to the Temple of the Lake Goddess

May 31, Sunday

Left at 9 am for a drive due north to visit the town of Bedugul and see the Temple of the Lake Goddess.  The drive was beautiful, through many small villages, and we saw hundreds of rice fields on the way.  Near Bedugul, we climbed a huge volcanic mountain on roads that switched back and traffic was even more treacherous than it usually is due to blind curves.  And of course our driver wasn’t content to stay in his lane, ever, and spent the whole driving in the oppose lane attempting to pass.  I had to close my eyes several times.

The Temple itself was very pretty and had two pagoda towers set in the lake.  The site also contained a Buddhist temple and nearby was a large Mosque.  I very much like the way several religions coexist side-by-side. 

It began to rain lightly while we were at the lake, and by the time we arrived at our lunch destination overlooking a beautiful rice terraces, the rain became monsoon-like.  I think this was the first day since our trip began when I was not boiling hot. 

Returned to the hotel around 4 and Scott and I quickly got ready for our “couples” massage at 5.  To get to the spa at the Maya Ubud Resort you take a golf-cart a long way down the hillside and are dropped off at the top of an elevator platform.  The spa entrance is one level down and nearby is a restaurant and lovely kidney-shaped pool.  Our treatment room was a thatched roofed open-air pavilion and we could hear the sounds of the river and tropical birds outside.  The washbasin in our changing was in the middle of a pebble pool.  We had a traditional Balinese massage that focuses on a combination of pressure point and deep tissue massage.  I think Scott enjoyed it.  He’s not a big fan of massage but when we said he thought the session “was short”, I interpreted this as meaning that he liked it. 

Had a light dinner at the hotel before leaving at 8:30pm to see a traditional shadow puppet performance of the Ramayana.  I didn’t understand a thing that went on but there seemed to be good puppets and evil ones and at some point there was a scene with elephants and camels and all the characters fighting and I am assured that the good guys triumphed in the end.