Lunchtime!  We’ve been teasing Kadek that we want KFC or Pizza Hut or Subway – but he knows we want Indonesian, and he and Putu are taking us to a special place.  Turns out, they take us to Pande Egli, the same place Ayu brought us yesterday!  Kadek knows we love suckling pig so….What a dilemma!  Do we tell him? Do we stay mum?  In the end, we decide not to say anything because we don’t want to hurt his feelings – and we just pray the staff doesn’t recognize us and say anything.  Fortunately the place is huge so we aren’t too concerned.  But we do go upstairs and sit in about the same place, and we do have one so the same servers.  Oy. What a conundrum!

But the meal goes off without a hitch and is just as good as yesterday and to be honest, we could eat Babi Guling every day.  It is that good!  And the bonus of coming here again is that we actually manage to get pictures of the whole place!  We were regretting not doing that yesterday, well, now we have our chance!

Now we are on the road to Tirta Empul, where we will “shower” our bad karma away.  Kadek has been telling us about this, it is a really sacred place, and all the Balinese come here to take part in this ritual, particularly during big Balinese holidays when it is super crowded.  He has of course done this, actually I think in the last couple of weeks, since he has been home.  We are fortunate today that there is nothing going on, from a holiday/celebration aspect, so it isn’t all that crowded.

We all pick up our praying sarongs, then enter through ceremonial gardens with temples and beautiful carvings, then into the temple proper where we pick up a “guide” – Pak – who helps us through the whole process. 

First, we must change into our swimming sarongs, which we rent for 10,000 IDR each, storing all our belongings in a locker we also rented.  We give my phone to Pak, who becomes our official photographer and once we are ready, we head out to the pool. But first we must pray – or meditate as Pak tells us – and then make an offering before entering the sacred waters.  Pak brings us our offerings, then blesses us with holy water and leaves us to meditate on our wishes and what we hope to wash away and gain from the waters. 

Meditation done, we enter the water pool area with our entourage – joined now by the “official” photographer here in the temple who takes a bazillion pictures of us as well as Pak and Kadek snapping away!  The first pool contains 9 fountains, under each of which we will pray and wash.  There are 3 other fountains we won’t use because those are only for cremations and celebrating the dead.  Good to remember which we use and which we don’t!

I enter first, and just about drown under the first fountain, much to the enjoyment of our paparazzi who I hear laughing as I resurface blubbering and spitting water.  Ed of course has no such problem, but has figured out the appropriate way to dunk his head under the fountain and not drown.  But he is behind me and I’m already onto the next fountain by the time he is doing his, so I’m not learning by example here!  By the 2^nd fountain, I’ve figured out the process and don’t drown myself, but still get too much water up my nose.  I finally find my groove with #3, and we both work our way down through the 9 fountains, praying along the way. 

Now I know why Kadek was talking about water sports in the car!  He was asking if we like water sports and if we snorkeled or scuba dived.  Um, no, and we relayed our kayak mis-adventure in Halong Bay to him.  But now I get it!  This is water sports in the extreme if you don’t want to drown!!!

The very last fountain in the first pool is more like a waterfall – there is a lot of water and it is really strong – this is to wash our bad dreams away – which I totally need.  I’m overly cautious here, because there is definite drowning possibilities, so I don’t think I really get as wet as I should, but at least I get sort of close.

Then we are out and climbing up the really slippery, algae covered steps to the final pool where we climb down equally slippery, algae covered steps to use one to wash our Chakra.  Here we must pray for a longer time and then wash 3x to cleanse ourselves completely.  There is a long line to wait for this fountain, but once we are there, it is like being all alone.  If you really focus and concentrate, you can believe you are one with the world and there is no one there but you, the cleansing water and your Chakra, ready to be purified.  Seriously – an amazingly excellent experience!

Back in the dressing room, we hand over our wet bathing sarongs then change into dry underwear without using the towels we have hauled around with us because if we dry off with the towel it will take all the sacred water off of us.  Sigh.  Poor Kadek has been hauling the bag around and now will continue to do so with the unused towels. 

Pak prepares to complete our tour by taking us to where the springs come into the complex from the mountain streams, but first the photographer grabs us and sits me down on the steps to go through all the pictures.  OMG.  Seriously, he must have taken 100 pictures!  And he wants me to choose the ones I want to print.  Argh.  I mean we really don’t want printed photos, but how can I not?  So we go through a few, I pick one of the 2 of us that is great, then one of Ed praying in the pool, but end up just whizzing past the rest and settling on those 2 without really looking at others.  Just want to have him make at least something out of this.  The pictures are cheap – only 30,000 each, but still.  It is just a waste for us to have, so….anyhow….

…photos chosen, we’re off to the back of the grounds where you can indeed see the springs coming into the pool.  It looks like a mini-volcano eruption in the water, all this bubbling sediment swirling around and bubbling up and down.  Highly mesmerizing and cool to look at!  Pak is giving us a history lesson and talking about the huge house complex up on the hill which belongs to the first president of Bali. Ed is listening intently and I am chatting with Kadek (yep, history, I’m where I typically am!!! LOL).  And with that, we snap a couple of pictures of the 2 of us in our praying sarongs and we are fully cleansed and ready to go back out into the world with our good karma. 

But first we must navigate the maze of shops that is the exit.  It is like being in an airport duty free shop on steroids.  This is seriously a maze – most like the Halloween cornfield mazes!  Kadek confidently navigates his way through, laughing at the vendors who are telling Ed everything is just a dollar.  Kadek just finds it hysterical they are saying one dollar and keeps calling out to Ed – who he does call dad or daddy – to stop and look for a dollar!  It is such a joy being with him!

Putu, who did not join us in our spiritual ritual, is waiting at the van and has somehow managed to get one of the best spots right by the entrance/exit in the vast and crowded parking lot.  He’s done that everywhere we’ve gone.  It’s a special talent!  Driving back toward Ubud, we make one last stop at a coffee factory where we take a walk through their botanical type garden with all the different coffee plants and the famous Luwaks (a cross between a cat and a ferret – at least it looks that way to me) that swallow the coffee beans but don’t really chew them, then poop them out creating famous “poop” coffee.  Yes, kid you not, that’s what they slangily call it.  Someone actually has to strain through the poop to the get the beans, then they are cleaned (let’s hope!) and roasted.  Now that’s a job, alright! 

It is a lovely walk, although there is one uncaged Luwak that sort of startles Kadek and me, but then we come to a little covered dining area where we get a special tasting board of all the coffees and teas they make here.  And every single one of them is great.  Tea included.  And it is just fun to sit there in the quiet, in the forest, drinking coffee and tea with Kadek.  A lovely last stop on a fun filled day!

We do succumb to 2 bags of expensive coffee, if only because we sort of feel like we should since they’ve spent so much time with us and Kadek knows them all (I think everyone knows everyone on this island!) – and they won’t go to waste.  Actually, weirdly enough, the flavored coffee is instant.  You’d never know it was – we tried 5 samples of different flavors, all with sugar (we bought the unsweetened one so I could doctor it up myself and Ed could drink it unadulterated) and were shocked when they told us it was instant.

And then it is back to the van, and to Ubud, through back roads and rice fields that make for a much more pleasant trip than on the main crowded roads.  Putu comes through town a different way, so we actually get a little tour of another part of town we’d not yet seen, and Kadek points out a restaurant he worked by the Monkey Forest before the moved to cruise ships – so now we have an additional place to put on our list for the rest of our week here in Ubud.

The drive is over far too quickly and we are saying goodbye before we know it.  This has been such a spectacular day and we couldn’t be more grateful for Kadek spending one of his last days of vacation with us.  He is scheduled to fly out the day after we are – going to join the Dawn where the other Kadek is working!  Small world – both here and in the cruise industry!

After our bittersweet goodbyes, we wander off down the torn up little lane to our villa where we spend the rest of the evening, eating our cooking school leftovers – which are just as excellent as when we made them fresh, and so neat packaged in the banana leaf wrappers from Dewa.  Nice!

The rest of the evening is spent lolling around the villa, watching tv, relaxing and reliving our excellent day of adventure.