Around The World: UBUD to GILLI Islands

We are spending our last day in Ubud.

We took a one day tour which included astonishing views, unique Hindu temples (Including the largest temple in Bali), A forest temple and a frightening side of aggressive locals.

Besa Kih was a stunning complex of temples situated in a village called Besakih, east of Ubud in Bali.

We took a one day tour, but our driver did not enter the temples with us. When we arrived to our second to last site our guide gave us some tips. He warned us that inside the Besakih Temple complex there will be locals telling you "You must pay for a guide to enter the complex" "There is a ceremony here today and you have to pay for a guide."

Even with this warning it was hard to handle. One man took my tickets and I handed them over thinking he would rip them so we could enter. He used the fact that he had my tickets as leverage to try to convince me to get a guide. When I said "No thank you" and "I will skip the ceremony, I will just walk around" He said "No guide, no enter" Kevin couldn't easily graab the tickets from his hand. I realized we needed to get them and get out of here. I struggled to pull them out of his fingers and his finger grip slid against the shiny ticket, making a squeek.

Intense.

We walked away very upset and in some minor shock. The other two people we were on the tour with were just as frazzled and confused as us. There was no warning of this SPECIFIC scam in any guidebooks and our tour guide said word for word what they would tell us. Scarily, the guide also said "DO NOT TELL THEM I TOLD YOU, them them you read this in the guide book."

A woman came up to me and crazily asked "Are they charging you an extra $10 too?!"

I said "no, we aren't paying for a guide."

Then a French couple approached us after ANOTHER incident.

Incident #2. The local said. "You cannot go up to these temples without a guide."

Kevin and I walked passed and kept walking. He yelled "HEY, Excuse me, HEY!!"

We never turned back.

The French couple came up to us and said "Well done."

I would like to thing we have learned A LITTLE from traveling for nearly 9 months.

We did. A little.

The children in the complex tried to grab my scarf and aggressively begged us to buy postcards.

I imitated their pleas for "10,000 rupiahs" "Ma'am, postcards only 10,000 rupiahs" and tickled them to lighten the mood. It worked. Thank Goodness.

We only had one nice experience where a vendor explained in detail the Hindu calendar and the meaning of the different months and the meaning of their gods and demons. He did the typical questioning "where are you from... etc" and surprisingly did not ask us to buy anything.