Monkeys and massages

The Balinese long-tailed macaque is much like any other monkey. The alpha males are tyrants, the babies adorable, the young children mischievous scamps and the females the glue that holds the society together. Much like us, actually. And they love bananas. They really really love bananas.

Agung Raka Bungalows is about a kilometre from Ubud centre and from the Monkey Forest. It has bungalows and a few standard rooms overlooking rice paddies and a beautifully-integrated swimming pool. It will be a very relaxing place to be. Assuming I ever manage to relax.

Agung Raka also offer hourly shuttles to Ubub town centre. I showed up on time for the 10am shuttle but it had already left. So they drove me to the Monkey Forest anyway.

The Monkey Forest! What can I say about the Monkey Forest? It's a forest with monkeys in it. Lots of monkeys. Not big monkeys; the long-tailed macaque is a relatively-small primate. But if you've ever had a large male mug you for bananas, you'd know that size, as they say, does not matter.

Photo: The sedate posture shows this is not a large male macaque

Photo: Monkeys in the Monkey Forest

Entry is 20,000 and the bananas cost me 15,000 from a local store. I spent at least an hour photographing the monkeys and walking around the temple at the top of the hill. It was a wonderful experience and, as I walked out of the forest and down Monkey Forest Road into Ubud to have a mango lassi,  I realised that in that hour I'd finally acclimatised from from 'stressed out public servant' to traveller.

Photo: More Monkey Forest

Photo: See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil

Photos: Monkeys outside the temple in the Monkey Forest

Photo: Temple in the Monkey Forest

Photo: Childcare in the Monkey Forest

I walked through Ubud's streets and its main market for another two hours, simply looking at all the arts and crafts, weaving and carving, bought a fake Longines in Ubud market, and arrived back at the hotel approppriately exhausted and acclimatised. I wasn't hungry for lunch so I went for a swim and then arranged for a three-hour massage in the gardens by the pool.

Then I went to the famous Bebek Bengil (Dirty Duck Diner) for dinner. But that is another story.

Dazed and confused in Denpasar: part 2

Did the cab driver rip me off? It's hard to say. Negotiating fares on your first day in a new country is always difficult and the little booth at the airport where you're supposed to pay a set price was empty. I don't really care. The sun is coming up as we drive through the streets thronged with an oddly-restrained form of Asia. Hindu architecture, honking horns, motorbikes, the odd Muslim headscarf. But comparative prosperity. No overt signs of poverty. Dirt but no filth. Not like Bangkok or Cairo or Delhi.

I arrive at the Agung Raka Bungalows just after 7:30am and check in. They let me have my room, for which I'm grateful. I put my bags away and have Nasi Goreng for breakfast in their restaurant. Then I sit on the wooden furniture on my private balcony and feel the stress of the last few weeks writhing around inside me like some parasite. Suddenly, between the stress and the lack of sleep it all just seems to hard. Bartering and a difficult language and culture and currency and I'm so wired I can barely sit down for ten minutes together. So I decide to go for a walk. A long walk.

I buy some water, I book a tour, I remember that in Asia walking is apparently a crime. And then I arrange for the hotel to drop me at the Monkey Forest. And that's when my trip really began.

Dazed and confused in Denpasar: part 1

Finish up my job at work rolling in waves of stress like the ocean after a tropical downpour. Pack my bags. Try to sleep. Fail. Drive to airport. Arrive early. As usual. Darwin has a new long-term carpark. Or rather a new interim long-term carpark. How did that happen in one week? Check in. Wait in airport in that strange adrenalin high you get when you have to be awake past midnight. Have a coffee even though it's 2:30am. Go through customs. Buy duty free. A friend wants Port Royal tobacco and I stand in queue for an age smelling it through the soft package. Board the plane and wait through all the usual rigmarole until we're finally airborne to Bali. Just me and half the population of Darwin. The other half is going to Malaysia or Fiji. Try desperately not to sleep through the two and half hour trip because I know that if I do, sleep is the little killer that makes the other end a daze. I fail.

And here I am at 6am; dazed and confused in Denpasar.

Dave does Darwin to death

So, it's heading into the dry in my last year in Darwin (again... no, really, I will be leaving this time, absolutely). And LRD is gearing up for the best year ever. We've already rocked it in SOCSPO, seen the dragonflies come out to signal the dry, and we're about to head off to Bali for the Easter/Anzac Day long weekend.

This year, I'm determined that I won't sprain my ankle or take on full-time study. I'm just going to relax and enjoy being in the tropics.

XOXO
LRD

LRD does Triple J

It's Triple J Hottest 100 day (known to some as Australia Day). I'm just back from SOCSPO and am having a few vinos and ... ok, doing laundy and cleaning the house but I did just come back from leave... listening to the awesome countdown.

Twitter's been the place to be this year with each song being tweeted as soon as it's played on the radio (gone are the days of "what was that song again?"). Check out their website here.

Personally, I find a lot of the best Aussie songs are earlier in the countdown so was glad I caught the tail end first. Lots of Bliss n Eso (best hip hop outfit EVER), Gypsy and the Cat, Arcade Fire, and Art vs Science. The latter made the top ten with the rather bizarre "Magic Fountain". Special mention also to Evil Eddie for the fantastic "Queensland".

For the record:
100 - Neutron Star Collision by Muse
50 - One Life Stand by Hot Chip
25 - Eyes Wide Open by Gotye
20 - Sunday Best by Washington
10 - Somebody To Love Me by Mark Ronson feat. Boy George
5 - Fall At Your Feet by Boy & Bear

Yes, that's right. The top 5 song is a f**king remake. That's just terrible. It's not even a good version of the song. What the hell is the world coming to?

3, 2, 1... *drum roll*

Number one song is... Big Jet Plane by Angus And Julia Stone

And it beat out Rock It by Little Red to do it

Happy 100 day everyone...

PS - What's with the "Barbara Streisand" song?

It's a mountain. Let's cycle down it.

So, I'll be honest. When I first booked to go to SOCSPO in beautiful Hobart, I thought "downhill cycling on Mount Wellington, sounds like fun". And then I remembered that I'm the type of person who thinks an exciting thing to do on Sunday morning is drink tea in bed. And then I got up on Sunday morning and it was the most perfect, most amazing day ever seen.

Hobart in summer is often cold and rainy but this was stunning - sunny, 32 degrees, little wind. How could I not... careen headlong down a 1271 metre mountain?

Was definitely not fit enough for this but loved it anyway. Here's some piccies of beautiful Mount Wellington...




Photo: Hobart and surrounds from the summit of Mount Wellington



Freycinet today

Great day today. First day of SOCSPO (at least for me). Official opening ceremony is tomorrow but today I went to Freycinet. Beautiful weather - perfect weather! We stopped at the town of Ross on the way up - lovely historical place - and then kept going through Oyster Bay (not the NZ one with the good vino!) to Freycinet.

Photo: Historical town of Ross



The national park is just beautiful and we stopped at Freycinet winery on the way back and had some vino. Lovely cold weather grapes and a good day overall.

Photo: Freycinet national park

SOCSPO... here we go...

SOCSPO is the social and sporting carnival held every three years for staff, family and friends of the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Statistics New Zealand. Hobart will be the venue for the 2011 carnival, which will be held from 16 to 22 January 2011.

And here I go...

Climategate no gate at all

Says it all really..

Climate scientists right

Little Red Dave stuck at Uni... again

So, what did LRD promise? More blog worthy? Nope! I'm back at Uni doing an intensive course in statistics. No travel, no embarrassing fan fiction writing, no blogging! The best-laid plans, huh?

I am, however, as part of this course doing a very interesting research project on the formation of online communities. If you're a member of a community and want to be involved

Click here to take survey

All responses are confidential and anonymous and data will be published in aggregate form only.

Little Red Dave thanks you for participating and saving his tiny red butt.