Bali Long Weekend Part 4

The Hotel, Batik and "Naughty" Monkeys.

On our first visit to Bali we stayed at a hotel in Jimbaran. This time we opted for a place in Nusa Dua- a quieter location. Built into a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean, you enter the hotel lobby on the 15th floor. The building limit is 15 floors! Here are a few shots at the hotel.

View off to the right.

We learned that on a nearby plot of land developers are building an enormous hotel. It will dwarf most hotels in the area. You can see the ongoing hotel construction in this view from our balcony.

As a side note, they have wedding packages that include camels!

Some amazing skies!

Batik!
Another craft-themed activity over the long weekend was a visit to two highly rated (by my friends) fabric shops to buy more batik fabric. Who doesn't need more batik? We ended up being able to park fairly close to the first shop. I shouldn't really say we because Pak Dewa was the driver. If it had been up to me I would not even have tried to park where he did as the spot was so, so small.  These drivers have amazing spacial awareness. We walked down the street to the first location. The shop staff were very helpful but the amount we had in the stack would not fit in our small carry-on bags. We provided our address information and the shop charged us per kilogram (it weighed 3 kg) to ship it to us. Total cost for the 3 kg was about $3 US. The weight wasn't the problem when trying to get the fabric in the suitcase, it was the volume of the fabric which included one jellyroll.  After concluding our shopping at store #1, we headed off to store #2 which was pretty close, around the corner. On our walk we picked up a helper who asked where we needed to go and she walked with us to the shop. She stayed in the shop until we had concluded our business there. Possibly there are street hawkers who get a cut if they bring folks in? Maybe she worked there and just happened to pick us out of the crowd? Who knows. At shop #2, we also purchased fabric but the volume was a little less so we stared at it and concluded we could get this batch into our suitcases with careful packing. It all worked out and the shop#2 fabric did fit!  What about the shipped fabric? When we arrived back at our apartment building on Monday, the fabric was already there waiting. It was basically rolled up into a plastic green garbage bag and taped up but it got here before we got back. Yippee!! Here's the complete haul- 28 meters of fabric, 2 jelly rolls and 1 collection of fat-quarters in shades of blue.

"Naughty" Monkeys
On check-in at our hotel, we were instructed to please keep the balcony door closed.  If not,  "Naughty" monkeys would raid the rooms! Sure enough, we saw monkeys out and about each morning. This species is called the Balinese long-tailed macaque or crab eating macaque because they do enjoy a crab snack! They love fruit as well. On one of their morning raids they must have found food on another balcony or in a room somewhere. We found half eaten limes and other fruit items on our balcony!
Up in the rafters? No problem.

 Walk across thin glass edge? No problem.

"Oh my, she's going to take my picture again!"

I was actually outside photographing the camel situation when the monkeys suddenly appeared. I high-tailed it back inside and closed the door. Our neighbor was outside on his balcony banging  and trying to make the monkeys go away. Why he just didn't go back in and close the door I will never know. Seemed the best option at the time to me.