We then met up for breakfast in the lobby and met our tour guide, Dhana, for the first time.  I've never traveled with a guide before, so my first instinct was to roll my eyes and lament the cultural experience I would undoubtedly be missing by being trotted around the country in a car. I think everyone in our group felt like that, and Dhana seemed to get that.  

The first thing we had planned was to go see a famous healer in Ubud.  Because being prepared is definitely not a thing I tend to do, I didn't even notice this until he showed up and started telling us about the 2 hour drive to get there.  We immediately vetoed this plan: not only was there no way we were getting back into a car, but our second hotel was right near Ubud so it was just as easy to stop at the healer on the way.  We won ourselves a half day of unplanned freedom and immediately headed to the pool.

I got some writing done while the rest of those jokers splashed around.  Hello, heaven. 

The morning turned into one of those lazy afternoons where no matter how much time you have, it isn't enough and you wind up running late (or is that just my life?).  We met Dhana to head up to our first Temple, Uluwatu Temple, and watch a sunset Kecak Dance.  The Temple was amazing:

The views are crazy and there are monkeys running around all over the place.  We were warned not to make eye contact with them, because they can be quite naughty, and will steal your sunglasses and, apparently, the shoes off your feet.  One monkey jumped right on a lady and ripped the glasses from her face and took off with them.  He was chased down by some official-looking monkey chasers.

We then went over to the theatre area to watch the famous Kecak Dance.

The dance was... strange.  

There was an a capella, chanting chorus that acted like waves:

If you look online, this thing gets RAVE reviews.  The costumes were pretty impressive and the story is very famous in Bali, but the dancing/storytelling clearly came from a tradition that was difficult to understand from a western perspective.  I really wanted to get it, but I definitely didn't.  In retrospect, I think that if I had watched this dance after spending some more time in Bali, it would have made a lot more sense.  For my first experience with Balinese culture, it was hard to tell if this was genuine or tourist-trappy.