After setting course for Uluwatu on my trusted GPS, we are off. While travelling I spotted a Harley Davidson dealer and told my wife I want to stop by here on our way back. I was hoping there will be good deals. My wife was holding onto the iphone and she was telling me: 2km turn left. 2km? How far is 2km man! I blame our old school traditional method of education on that.
Let me explain. If you recall when we were younger and we were told to learn our multiplication tables, we were told to memorize, be it off the back of our exercise book or sometimes its printed on the side of our plastic ruler. Mom will ask: What is 2 x 2? 4 I'll reply. What is 2 x 3? Eeerrr... 7? WHACK! (either getting hit by the exercise book or plastic ruler) WRONG! Go and memorize again!
So I grew up knowing 2 x 2 = 4, 2 x 3 = 6 because the back of the exercise book said so. Do I really understand the rationale? No. Lets do a test
1) How much is 1000ml?
2) How much is 1000m?
3) How much is 100cm?
If you answered 1 liter, 1 kilometer and 1 meter, you are absolutely right! But when we were younger, do we physically know HOW much is that? If you never was an athlete, you do not know how much is 400m, 200m or even 100m.
And it is not only when I started doing my own marketing for my groceries did I recognise a Coke bottle as 1.25 liters. If not I knew 1 liter as 1000ml. 1km as 1000m and 1m as 100cm. Back to multiplication, I knew the answer but never understood why. Today the education system has changed, schools teach modeling where kids draw pictures for every maths problem. This gives them something more visual to solve problems thus in turn giving them more understanding then memory work.
I asked my 5 year old niece WHAT does 2 x 2 means. She told me 2 sets of 2!!!! My jaw dropped, I stared at her as if she was an alien trapped in a child's body. Damn I do not even think I knew that when I was 5!
Anyway back to my journey to Uluwatu. Not surprisingly, I missed a couple of turns cos my wife expected me to know how far 2km was.... till she finally gave up. She decided she will just shove the GPS in my face just before the turn was coming, well that worked far better. Hhhmmm then again, could it be because we (men) are visual creature? Never mind that can be a separate blog post.
I knew that one of the highlights of Uluwatu was that it was built on top of a cliff. After riding for almost half an hour, I realise we have been riding on flat ground. How to have cliff? Just as I finished that thought, a winding uphill appeared. I twisted the throttle so as not to lose speed. But the horsepower on a 125cc bike with me as a rider (I weigh 100kg or some of my friends say 0.1 ton) became more apparent on the slope. I hit the slope at 70km per hour it fell to 60km, 50km, 40km. Tried to twist some more, no more! Speed is dropping further, 30km, 20km and for a moment I was afraid the bike may just stall totally, but it held at 20km per hour. Those of you schooled in the traditional method of memory, let me put it into perspective for you: bicycles can do more than 20km per hour easily.
From the GPS I saw that there are small roads that actually lead out to the cliffs and I asked my wife if we should just make a small detour and see where one of these small roads will lead to. I know she hesitated saying lets go, because the sun was shining down on us. She was afraid of getting sun burnt and she also has told me my forearms are getting damn red. But before she can say anything we were down one of these roads. It was really nice without the traffic of the major roads. And it was worth it coming down this path as at the end of it was this:
Blown away by this sight. No ship in sight and we practically can see to the horizon, in fact I did not know where the sea ended and the sky began. Took in the sight for awhile, took some photos and we are off again.
Reached Uluwatu Temple and I had my sunglasses on. After I bought my ticket, counter guy said, sunglasses careful, monkey. Wa! really ah the monkey here so fierce? Walked through the gates and another guy collecting our tickets told me: be careful, sunglasses, monkey. Made me kind of worried but I remembered watching National Geographic, the more you show your fear the more they will know it. In the animal kingdom there will always have an alpha male. I AM the alpha male, I thought. That already made me feel bigger and walk with confidence down a path lined with trees and bushes. Suddenly, there was rustling in the bushes. Careful, sunglasses, monkey came into my head, scan the bushes hoping I can spot the monkey so I can show him my alpha male stance and confidence before he can sneak up on me and grab my sunglasses.
Kept scanning then there was another rustle, saw the bush moved! Ha! I know where it is now! Stood my ground and suddenly the animal came into view, it was a cow...
Walked further down the path, another rustle, now my wife jumped. Cow... where's the monkeys?!
No encounter with monkeys and when we reached the end of the path, this: 
We could see the temple in the distance, magnificent view from where we stood. Figured since we were here we will have to go up to where the temple stood. I could see the path leading to the temple and under the hot sun it looked crazy. But then it was all worth it when we saw this:
The small little hut is where I shot the first photo.
Shot a few more photos and we were off to Jimbaran for lunch. Monkeys there were and I think my alpha male stunt worked. Walk big,walk tall. Or maybe they were just taking shelter in the shade from the blistering heat.
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