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Exploring Ancient Bali

After a few days in Jakarta it was time to move on. JP had found a job in Jakarta so his journey ended there, for now. We flew down to Bali, continuing our search for work. We have been in Bali now for maybe about a week. A couple days in Kuta (a boring beach town near the airport, popular for drinking and clubbing), 5 days in Ubud and today we arrived in the beach town of Lovina. On the second day in Ubud we did some cycling through the countryside and visited a few temples and sacred sites. On the third day we did a 10KM walk through some of the major archaeological sites around Ubud. We walked out of Ubud towards the village of Sala. Most of the way was down hill deep into ravines and then the strenuous climb up the other side. Arriving in Sala was a nice change, nice and flat! Rice Paddies as far as we could see. We passed through some of the important local temples and saw some of the different style of ancient Balinese architecture. Not far from Sala we went to the Ant...
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Key Gompa in the High Altitude Desert

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Key Gompa, an ancient monastery in the Spiti Valley, a high altitude desert valley cut off from rainfall and the outside world by soaring mountains and treacherous roads in the state of Himachel Pradesh, North India. We stayed here over night while trekking through from Kibber to Kaza. Tea and meals with the monks was so much fun. We were called to meals and tea by the sound of a conch shell horn. One of the younger monks showed us many of the sacred inner rooms of the monastery which housed thousand year old scriptures and Thangkas (Tibetan paintings) which had been brought over from Tibet over the last thousand years. Some rooms were so sacred that outsiders were not even allowed to look in, which I really like because it leaves some mystery, which there ought to be in a thousand year old temple deep in the Himalayas  The monks take there meals in an ancient kitchen, along one wall there are big stone wood fire stoves. On top of the stoves huge bla...
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Nan She Village

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk down a street in China during the Qing dynasty! Well you can't because it was a long time ago, but!! you can go to Nan She Village. In a district of Dongguan called Chashan you can find the village of Nan she. It is a perfectly preserved village that has survived the test of time, through the Ming and Qing dynasty it has been relatively unchanged. In the past it was known as a major cultural center for south-eastern China now it is a quiet town but no less important. It has now been placed under protection by Chinese authority as one of China's many cultural relics. The whole village is not much larger than 5-10 square blocks enclosed by an ancient wall, but it packs a lot history and culture into a small area. The current residents spend most of their time sitting around talking or walking up and down the beautiful streets. Most of the young people are usually off in modern China getting an education or working in one o...
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