After 3-4 hours, it was mostly over. We found our driver again, and on the way home, made a detour to see a wood carving shop. This area is known for its wood carvings, and there are a lot of spectacular statues carved out of entire trees, to small pocket-sized carvings.

I asked for the detour, thinking we would pull over to the side of the road at one of the shops… but our driver had some friends at the place the carvings are made. Ok.

You never know quite what you’ll see, and as we zipped down a few smaller roads in this central Bali village, I noticed at least 2 dozen kids, men & women bathing in the river along the side of the street, washing their clothes in the river, and some washing their scooters with river water. According to our driver, maybe 80% of Balinese do this, because running water is too expensive. Hmm.

There is a lot of evidence of the struggle Bali is suffering through due to the lack of tourism after the two bombings in 2002 and 2005. At the wood carver workshop, we met the master carver. He usually employs 78 carvers. Today there were 4. There are carvings that have been hanging around for 4 years because tourists aren’t coming to buy,,, so there was a hint of desperation to sell hanging behind the look of pride in their work. These guys were great though. I wish I had money to throw at them.