In Ubud, or is it Uboobs?

We fled Lombok after leaving the Gili Islands because of the rain, but it has followed us here, back on Bali, in the town of Ubud about an hour from Depansar and the Kuta area where we spent 5 days or so a bit back. Its been pouring every day. BUT, not all day, and we've takend advantage of the breaks to do some exploring.

But the reference above is because Ubud is an art town - every other store is a gallery, and Christine is set to take an art course in a few days. And the artists here love boobs, and they are everywhere - on sculptures, in paintings. We even saw boobs carved into a door on a house yesterday. Not attached to any person, mind you, just sort of there on the door. Pretty cool. Kind of odd for a muslim country, though.

And, by the way, upon our arrival in Indonesia two weeks ago it marks two big firsts for the both of us. First time in a muslim country AND first time south of the equator. So THAT is what we are spending our life savings for...

In other news, we've just purchased our final leg tickets. We longed to travel to Europe by train, and we researched it to no end, but decided that it would be just too expensive and too logistically complex (especially gettting all of the required visas). So, in the end, its a few boring old flights - from Bangkok, through Bahrain to Paris, spend a month in France and Spain, and then Paris to Portland, OR through New York. And that, dear readers, will carry us around the world. Its nice to have the final leg in place. Now we can move on to the next problem: How, exactly, will we ever afford a month in France and Spain?

Last night we went to a Kecak dancing program in Ubud. This is a truly mesmerizing form of dance, an outgrowht of some of Bali's traditional dance. I first saw Kecak in the movie Baraka but, at the time, had no idea about where it was from. Now I've seen it in its native place. We've included a photo (I hope, having a few upload problems here...) from that night, as well as one from Gili Trawangan. It was, as you can see, an all purpose island - great snorkeling AND surfing. What more could one need in life?

Ian