"My House will be a House of prayer; you have turned it into a den of thieves"

I was reminded of these words from the Bible as we made a visit to a temple today. I have a better sense for what they meant after our visit. We went to visit the most sacred temple in Bali today, Pura Besikah. From the guidebook, I knew that there would be a bunch of folks that would try to give us "guided tours" and tell us that you HAD to use their services. Well, you don't have to.

I did not know how persistent and how many they would be. We made it past many of them on the walk up to the temple. Most of them left once we told them "no, we don't need a guide because we are not going into the temple". However, at the top, they became more aggressive and told us we could not pass. We still pressed on. We got to the top and were about to go on the path on the side of the temple and one fellow would not let us pass. He gave us a line of bull about being a "Temple Guardian" and that he only needed 30,000 rupiah to guide us through.

We got some great shots in spite of this constant harassment. In the end, we didn't give in and give him any money; however, we didn't go up the stairs either. Thinking back on it, we should have because every other time we pressed forward and ignored their "offers", they would simply move on to their next prey. Well, hindsight is 20/20 after all.

It was so frustrating to me as a non-Hindu. I wonder what Hindu's must think of the rampant lying and cheating going on on the grounds of such a sacred place. It really was amazing there today - they were having a lot of ceremonies there and people were all dressed up in ritual clothing and brought sacrifices (including one duck!). I just think it is a shame to have people pushing other things on you there. (As an added bonus, throughout all of this, I had to wear the Sarong again...joy).

Speaking of rituals and ceremonies, our driver was telling us that yesterday was one of the four main worship days - they had special worship for the Trees. The other worship days are for:
Animals, Land and, of all things, machines (mainly cars!).

That was our first stop of the day. From the temple debacle, we went to see an overlook of one of their lakes, Lake Batur. It was a great view, even though it was a little cloudy at the top. Per usual, everywhere we stopped, there were more souvenirs that we could buy. One guy was particularly funny. He kept trying to sell me a chess set (or what I thought was a chess set). He came down to 5000 Rupiah (about 50 cents US). I offered him 2000 rupiah (because that is what I had in my pocket - he acted very offended because I went so low! Come to find out, he was offering only ONE of the chess pieces for 5000 rupiah, not the entire set. Furthermore, our driver, Made, said that the wood was "young wood" and wasn't any good. Later on, we were driving past some woodcarvers and he pointed out that they were using "young wood" - basically, small trees that they would cut, carve and then stain to make them look like older, more expensive wood.

Our driver (Made' - pronounced Mah-day) is pretty funny. He tries really hard to understand us. He speaks pretty good english, but not all the time. For instance, Rach asked him if they had many Americans come down to visit and he proceeded to answer her by saying that no, he didn't eat in restaurants because they cost too much. He tries...that is all you can ask for.



He is a wealth of information. Today, on our way to the aforementioned temple, we had to stop at one point. We didn't know why. There was a procession of people walking across the road with food and other items. He said it was a funeral and that the entire village comes out in celebration of their life. It was really need to see that and have the entire group come together. They were all dressed up in their finest and brought gifts.

After we were done with the lake, that was all we had planned to do. Made' suggested two more places to go. One was another temple that had a "holy water" spring. It was a beautiful temple and there were a lot of people washing themselves in the holy water. I have to say, they are a very devoted people from a religion standpoint.

The second was a Buddhist cave. Not a whole lot to see there (got to wear that Sarong again - three times in a day.)

Oh, forgot to mention how we started the day. I found a station on the internet that had the Ohio State / Texas game today, so we listened to that this morning. Very frustrating ending to the game. Who only gets 9 points out of three turnovers? Who turns the ball over with two minutes to go - TWICE? We so should have won that game. Now, I have to pay for Brad William's freaking dinner and wear something UT related. Well, Brad, now I owe you, but I have to tell you, I already have the UT related gear and will wear it to dinner, per our bet.

That's it for today.