Day three Bali

Day three in Bali and we have done lots.  Yesterday we went to Kuta to take a look at the big department stores of which the Mata Hari is the largest.  As I recall, the Mata Hari was one large tall building with many departments on different floors. In the last few years it has been rebuilt and all those departments are scattered around the large shopping centre in different locations.  Not sure it is better.    Today we went to Ubud and en-route we took in a Barong & Kris dance.  The whole show took about an hour and the traditional story was updated with a bit of humour inserted for the tourists.  I was impressed with the dance and costumes but would have rather had the Readers Digest Condensed version over half an hour.  The Gamelan orchestra was brilliant and here is a small clip I shot of them playing. Forgive me for including a shot of my feet at the end.

Ouch sorry for the poor quality.  I forgot to take my camera with us and had to borrow cousin Val's little camera to take the Ubud pics and Video.  Sorry for the put-down Val.




In Ubud we dined at the Lotus restaurant.  The food was excellent and the dining area overlooked a large pond and temple.  Everywhere we have eaten the costs have been huge...roughly around 90,000 Rupia for two.   That is about $9. Australian!

This is the hot season here and there are not many Australian tourists about.  We have observed large groups of Dutch, some Germans and Russians; French and Spanish, plus a few languages/nationalities which escape identification.
Tomorrow we are off to Legian where cousin Val hopes to buy some fabrics.  I have ordered a pair of trousers from a small tailor shop near our hotel.  I will also try on some inexpensive trousers at the local supermarket, Hardy’s and get them shortened by the tailor who is making my trousers.

Our hotel is comfortable, but on closer looks it is shoddily built.  We bought the cheap holiday, so we cannot complain. Next time I will pay the extra and go upmarket.

Some pics of the tradesman standards...

We had a very nice snack meal at a tavern near Hardy's Dept store.  It is owned by a Dutch national and has some smart notices on the walls.