Bali, I went there to do a 4 week long yoga training, but I managed to get a bit of time before and after the training to look around the island a bit.
In the ricefields, near Ubud.
The monkey forest in Ubud: A small park with some temples ruled by monkeys basically.
If you have food on you and don't give it to the monkeys straight away, they'll just take it themselves.
Left, temple statues. Right, temple statues and monkeys mixed in my head and put down on paper : )
Dog guarding the entrance to a temple..
The dogs seemed in general to have faith in us humans not hurting them with cars or scooters.
Food market
Ricefields
Rice
Rain...
Ceremony on the beach in Amed before the balinese new year. Bali is hinduistic. There's often ceremonies and there's temples, big and small, everywhere.
Women carrying offering in baskets on their heads.
Shiva and Batman ballons : )
Your new pet. I'm not sure the residents of the shells had much influence on the decorations.
After picking your favorite colored shell, you need a house for the new pet.
The big ceremony in town had a lot of elaborated offerings.
Like this beautifully placed chicken.
There was a dragon and two persons sweating like crazy inside of it.
In the evening, there was a parade of demons. All homemade pap mache figures, some were really amazing. I only got photos from a few in daylight. My camera was not fit for the evening show.
Wuhuu the beach!
On the road to Canggu, there was this really nice water temple.
Taking notes.
My teacher, Tara Judelle.
One of the Desa Seni dogs taking a well earned nap after hard work begging all morning.
Octopus tree
My home for the training. I couldn't affort to stay at the resort so I found a smaller version 5 mins away.
Small offering at the beach. You would find these everywhere, infront of all door and on tricky place along the roads.
This was a sunday so a lot of local people were at the beach relaxing.
A day at the beach in my sketchbook.
Off to Nusa Lembongan, an island 30 mins from Bali.
A beach with clean water and no trash : )
Temple decorations
Sam loves the durian fruit. I'm not quite there yet.
It has a really smooth, creamy texture and taste like a mix between celery, spring onion and litche I would say. But most of all then it has a very distinct smell..
Mission of the day: Go snorkeling with manta rays.
and we did!!! There were two of them, swimming around us like we had no relevans to them at all.
Sam floating along.
me
I finally learned to dive down without feeling like my ears would explode. Being down at the level of the corals is even more amazing.
Seaweed farms. A lot of the locals earned their way living by growing and selling seaweed.
Lunch time on the beach.
Mangroove trees at lowtide
In the mangroove forest, well it felt more like a labyrinth.
Mangroove trees at high tide.
On the way to the coast, it started to rain...a lot.
In the evening, there was a parade of demons. All homemade pap mache figures, some were really amazing. I only got photos from a few in daylight. My camera was not fit for the evening show.
Street decorations. Some had offerings hanging in them too, like bananas and cakes.
Turns out there's even a temple underwater.
well...me
Left, statues from the water temple. Right, what it became in my head.
The yoga training starts. Stan, the skeleton is helping out in the anatomy lectures.
We basically spent all day in this room.
In the breaks we could enjoy the rest of Desa Seni which is where the training took place. Not the worst place to spent all day.
(I'm sorry for all the shakes but I just can't float along yet)
Asana (poses) praktise
Done!
Physiology lectures with Lawrence.
Traditional house but here it was just storage.
Din is working her magic in the pool. It was an amazing feeling being floated and swirled around in the water without having to make any effort.
Playing around in the pool..
The gang of beach dogs.
Canggu is mainly a surfing spot. No good for snorkeling..
We found this cafe near the beach with amazing looking cakes... they turned out to look better than they tasted.
For some reason, gas for your scooter was sold in vodka bottels. Bali just doesn't seem like a place where they drink a lot of Absolut Vodka.
treasures
Sam and me on the road. We were the only two persons on the island wearing helmets. The guy we rented the scooter from didn't quite understand why we wanted them since there were no police on the island...
Animals taking care of the offerings.
This villages just got a new temple and was preparing for the opening.
Left, temple statues (yes the dog woman is real). Right, what ever I had in my head at that moment.
This one was doing loops.
Again, sorry for the jump midway but the manta's felt very close to you so I tried to keep my limbs in close.
This is why we bother go snorkeling. It's incredible what's beneath the surface.
