Hello from Indonesia! My trip starts out on the island of Bali, in the city of Ubud. (As I learned yesterday, the correct way to pronounce it is “oo-bood” … and not “you-bud”.) I am staying in the very peaceful Ubud Bungalows pictured below. Mine is the bungalow on top.

These bungalows are on the main strip called Monkey Forest road, which, like the rest of the roads in Bali, is very narrow, twisty, and noisy and packed with cars and taxis and buses and motorbikes. They also drive on the left side of the road, so on my first venture outside I thought traffic was completely clear after looking to my left … only to step out and have a minibus nearly crush me from my right.

I started off my first morning in Ubud with white water rafting. The drive picked up me and several other people at 9am, and we met up with a much larger group. After being outfitted with our gear, we walked down approximately 1000 steps down a steep gorge to reach the river.

After about an hour of exciting class 3 rapids, we stopped for a few minutes. Here is my rafting group: an Irish guy from Australia, me, and a couple from San Francisco.

Because we were completely drenched in water by the waves over and over again, I didn’t take out my camera during the rafting itself, but luckily someone from the company took this action photo. I’m in front, with the mean point.

After returning home, I decided to explore the famed Monkey Forest, for which the main street is named. It is a medium-sized forest with approximately 500 monkeys … monkeys who are not nice. I bought a few bananas just before going in, and I put them down for a split second to put the cash back in my pants. The moment I lay them down, a little hairy hand swiped them away. I yelled out an expletive loudy and chased after him, but all the guides were shouting “Don’t chase monkey!” so I stopped. This is me after a fight with yet another monkey, one that climbed up my body to try and grab my banana (banana fruit, you perverts). I’m about to throw that banana at him.

At the end of the day, one monkey had stolen from me, one had attacked me, and another had humped my leg. These guys are aggressive and they gang up. I’m actually a little afraid of them now. But here is a nice monkey baby and mom just to show that a few of them have the potential to be cute.

Next post: Bali naming culture.