As we drive up the road leading to Ubud it is painfully apparent that tourism has lead to some massive development here. The streets are lined with wood carvers, art galleries, glass blowers, etc. Many of which all seem to be selling the identical wares of their neighbor. The main street through town is further littered with shops and restaurants with a variety of guesthouses located down narrow gang ways. Our home for the next few days is at the Ganesha Inn, at the end of a walkway facing rice fields filled with a herd of ducks (left out in the field to eat the roots of the already harvested rice - I think). Our room is striking, more like a suite with a reading room (which will be our surfboard room) and a huge veranda facing a ganesha statute in a huge garden with a multi-lingual parrot who greets us in 3 languages and has a tendency to laugh this deep sadistical laugh everytime it hears me laugh. 
The young men who run the place could not be nicer and they bring us breakfast on our veranda every morning.At first glance Ubud seems like nothing more than one big tourist town, granted with a yogi flair as opposed to the young party crowd in Kuta. But quickly you notice that the typical Balinese traditions, daily offerings, ritual prayers, and celebrations are still adhered to and take a priority in their daily lives. Shopkeepers in the process of a mid-morning pray do not even notice when you enter their shop. If you are truly interested in their wares, you will wait - prayers will not.
A variety of traditional dance ceremonies are held every night at various locations through-out the city. We chose a traditional Kecak and Fire Show. Kecak is a form of Balinese music drama, originated in the 1930s and is performed primarily by men. It is performed by a circle of 50 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, chanting "cak" and throwing up their arms to depict a battle from the Ramayana story where the Monkey Warrior, Vanara, helps Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravava.
The Kecak also has roots in a trance-inducing exorcism dance, performed by Balinese women. The cast includes colorfully costumed characters including the Monkey Warrior, the Prince and others, and the performance we see ends with a man in a horse type costume galloping over and kicking around hot burning coconut embers.
One morning at the crack of dawn we drove further into the countryside to watch the sun rise over the Mount Barat, a volcano which has a huge crater rim where several villages have taken up residency, along side a huge lake which borders the base of the cone.
