TEN SHOTS: BALI

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Offerings to the Gods are made constantly throughout a Balinese woman's day.  Whenever a meal is cooked, an arrangement of flowers, food and holy water is placed on the alter as well as on every tool and surface used to make the meal.  There are countless other reasons to make offerings.  On any given street, you'll find at least a dozen flower offerings.  Every time we went to use our scooter, there was an offering on the seat and at the entrance to the driveway.

Local coffee with local coconut milk, local paper.  For being a coffee destination, we were surprised to find that the coffee is not cheap! (almost $4 for this one).

BUGS EVERYWHERE.  Crickets and snails and moths and beetles and frogs and geckos galore.
I understand that some of these things are not bugs.

Our house had a garden full of guavas!  We made a lot of jam.  Everything smelled like guavas.

Balinese massage in the rice fields.  $9 for 80 minutes made it one of the most ridiculous deals we've found on our trip!

View from our room during the afternoon storm.  Every day around 3pm, the clouds would move in and darken and just flood everything.  The sound was deafening.  Our room was like an amphitheater. 

But that's why things are so green!

Babi Guling, the famous Balinese whole pig.  This was not our favorite pig, as the meat is chopped up into small pieces before being served and that made Read sad, but their method of take out (in that handmade paper cone) is pretty sweet.

This is a Balinese family compound, where families as large as 30-40 people live together.  The left building is where all the ceremonies take place - every deceased family member has had death rites performed on that bed.  The small narrow building to the right of it is where they store their rice.  In the front yard, all the children's placentas are buried in the ground and marked with a rock, so that visitors can count the rocks and easily know how many children the family has.  Most locals in Ubud still live in compounds.

Food stalls in the street and market were often pretty inaccessible to foreigners.  Lots of dishes were made with blood, from sausage to salad, and were super spicy.  The chilies in America that we call hot, the Balinese call sweet peppers.
Also: this woman is staring at me because I am Asian and Read is white.

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READ'S TERRIBLE HAIRCUTS

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About two years ago, Read decided to start giving himself haircuts.  It was one of his worst ideas ever.  Not only does he have no experience giving haircuts, he also likes to give himself haircuts at absurd times.  We'll be on our way out to dinner or late to meet someone and I'll find him in the bathroom buzzing away in a rush.  Obviously these haircuts look like shit and after a few days of asking him when he's shipping out, Read always agrees to get his next haircut done by a professional.  Alas, for the last two years, Read has continued to give himself shitty haircuts.

Then, in Bali, this happened:

Only after seeing this picture did Read understand the extent to which he has a problem.

There is apparently one man in all of Ubud who gives haircuts.  His name is Rudi and his shop always has half a dozen dudes waiting outside his purple room.  His haircuts cost $1.

You'll notice that in the center poster for Rudi's "Top's Collection", it's all super Asian hair styles + one picture of Colin Farrell.  On the left poster, the surprise celebrity guest is Rob Thomas.

Read's turn.  Rudi's like... wtf.

Rudi wears a face mask.

Read's hair has never looked better!  I forgot to take an after shot so you'll just have to picture the glory of all his hair cut in a uniform length.

Has Read finally been converted to professional hair cuts?  The hope is this post will shame him into change.  

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