I took a long walk through the Bedugul Botanical Gardens as the late afternoon turned to evening. It pulled me out of the random funk that I was in. The bamboo was bounteous and the ferns were fantastic, but it was the statue depicting the moral of the Ramayana that really got me. All of the little monkey guys are demons attacking (um, I forget - Visnu?), and he's warding them off. The other statue depicts another battle. I should have taken better notes, I s'pose. Evil can be beaten, that's the gist of it.
The walk back into town was quiet, as the crickets crescendoed and the mist hung like a drape over the lake and the mountains/ No matter where you go in Bali, it feels smoky, misty, hazy, cloudy. The sky is clear as all, but the haze settles in the valleys, and far off clouds caress the mountain top. Tonight, the clouds finally lifted from Gunung (Mt.) Catur, revealing steep cliff drops to the lake, jagged evidence of landslides.
