Bali Bound 2023

We woke up early to drive to Pranasanti yoga studio. This was a very quiet place away from the busy street and very lush, landscaped, and peaceful.   We were served tea and coffee and given traditional Balinese clothes for the water temple ceremony. We met Ena, our guide who was so kind, knowledgeable and spiritual. She is training to be a priest, but priests need to have all their business tied up so they can focus on being a priest. She wants to do this in the next few years but is waiting for her kids to be grown up so she is more financially stable. Priests need to be free of all stressors and worries to focus on the rituals. So we got into the van and headed to Pura Mengening temple. This was a temple built in the 11th century with 11 different pools (pancoran solas) The pools are all for different functions, and pools 3 and 10 were specific to purification. Most people do a purification ceremony every full or new moon because it is when you are most open to new energy from th...

Today we got up at a reasonable hour for our french braid party before we headed out on our animal adventure.  I had wanted to ride an elephant when we booked this trip and today was the day.  To be honest, it was a little less enjoyable for me because we were not in the wild with the elephants, but it was still cool to be around such majestic creatures.  The Bali zoo is super small but very cool in that most of the animals are not in cages at all.  There were gibbons and orangutans flying around, and we were greeted by a wallaby just chillin by the entrance.  I dont want to get into a full discussion about zoos, animals in captivity, and the philosophy of animal conservation, but let's just say that it was cool to see crocodiles, toucans, ostrich, and other animals up close.  They seemed very comfortable with humans, but the humans there also seemed very respectful of the animals.  Our elephant experience involved us walking around on a seat on the el...