Ubud

spent a lovely few days in Kuta walking around, constantly saying no thankyou as people all the time are going 'taxi?' 'transport?' 'Massage?' 'tattoo?' or the most annoying one 'helloooo?' which maks me laugh. however i did end up bargaining for a few things, not being able to shop much due to the size of my bag is annoying but i bargained 2 cushion covers down from 90,000 for 1 to 100,000 for 2. lots and lots of surf shops to tempt me as Roxy and Quiksilver and Rip Curl stuff is cheap here as well but no space... Surf looks good and loads of 'Surfboard?' hire places on the beach but the water is about as grey as i have ever seen it. looks really polluted and i didn't really want to surf on my own. undertow quite strong and Bali isn't known for the quality of its lifeguards.
got on the bus to Ubud yesterday and found a place to stay near the bus terminal (can't walk far with my bag -its hotter here than on the coast!) called Artini cottages which seem to be located in a temple. can't quite understand but it doesn't look very hotel like. lots of decoration and gold paint. plus a friendly cute fluffy dog. managed to bargain him down to 130,000 a night including tax and breakfast. was a bit dubious of the quality of the breakfast but this morning it was 2 bits of toast, fried egg, tea (no milk of course - i'm gettng used to it) and fruit salad. ate last night in an organic cafe next door which turned out to be full of posh European expats with kids with names like Lola and Freddie. not eating there again. although they did sell Bali ale.
this morning i went to the sacred monkey forest down the road which is a forset with sacred monkeys and temples in. got taken in by a friendly guy who showed me around and even showed me some babies, including a 5 day old one, but then of course he wanted to sell me some 'paintings' he'd painted. I said no. funnily enough i saw similar paintings for sale in the town later on... for once i'd thought 'aha, a friendly person who doesn't want my money' but of course no. as lonely planet says we're all walking atms. Going to a Balinese dance tonight hope i don't get bitten like last night - my leg is a bit tender today.
just heard about the earthquake in sumatra - didn't feel it here.