For good luck, yes.

I arrived in Bali yesterday, and caught a taxi straight to ubud - which turned out to be an hour's drive, and more expensive than anticipated. Petrol has gotten more expensive since my guidebook was written. I had nowhere booked, and the driver wanted to show me somewhere, so I let him take to Greenfields bungalows. Consequently (commission included) I am paying around $25 a night, whereas I had anticipated around $8 per night. But the place is beautiful. They serve coffee continuously (so I've had about 7 cups today already) - best coffee ever. Monkey Forest Road is this endless rabbit-warren of art/craft shops. Local artisans sell their wares here, but it's difficult to distinguish between the quality goods and the mass-produced tourist-fodder. There are plenty of tourists around, but you get the sense that the town is used to receiving a lot more. It's all cheap, and bargaining can cut the prices by 50% (I have had most success doing it in Bahasa Indonesia - the people here have found my Bahasa a real novelty). Monkey Forest Sanctuary is the main attraction, so I made the obligatory visit this morning. Bought a bag of rambutans and was ambushed as soon as I entered the gates. So I went back to buy more, and the lady told me to hide them in my bag. So I did, and was then left alone. Unfortunately I was too scared to take them out inside the sanctuary, and handed them back to the seller on the way out. There are some nasty big male macaques. I feel sorry for the German kids whose parents made them sit still - screaming and crying - while the monkeys crawled all over them. The Indonesian families watching thought it was very funny. After that, I went shopping in the textile market, bought some silk batik and ink drawings very cheap, and wandered around the galleries, shops and temples in the north. This afternoon I paid a kid with a motorcycle to take me out to Yeh Pulu - the 14th century Hindu carvings on a rock-face. I had to don a sarong before entering because I didn't have long pants on. The relief is not much to look at - in fact I walked right past it to begin with - but a very humble sort of comic-strip record of village life 700 years ago. From there we went to Pura Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave Temple), which was a little more scenic due to its various water features. It was a Buddhist temple that was partially dismantled and built over with a Hindu temple around the same time that Yeh Pulu was done. The pieces of the old temple are piled up neatly beside the new one. Now it's raining. I just ate sate pork from a warung (street-stall) for around 80 cents, and I am about to make my way back to the monkey sanctuary, where a dance performance is supposed to occur tonight. I'm posting a parcel home tomorrow. See you again soon.