Terrorist threat... reading the news carefully on the internet

I took a ride around Ubud and up to Tegalalang and ordered some of my custom handicraft jewelry, wooden spirals, coconut spirals and wave spiral earrings. The cool breeze felt wonderful. I’m renting my motorcycle from John it is brand new 700 kilometers on the odometer... makes me a little nervous to be driving something so new.

I stopped along the way taking photos of the Ogah Ogah huge very colorful paper maché demon/monsters which are being built in each of the villages in preparation for Nyepi Day. Today I will go out and get some more pictures. So far they are all missing their heads? I need to talk to some of the people as I wonder about some of the very strange images... a lot of naked and grotesque female images sometimes holding smaller men from their claw like hands (what does this mean??)


This morning while thinking about my friend Kimberly and how she always let me know what was happening in my travel areas I decided to take advantage of my wifi and look up Bali News... I don’t have a TV and I don’t get the newspapers where I am staying. I was surprised to learn of the shooting of five terrorist suspects last night in Sanur and in Denpassar... no trial here they are all dead now. I had quit thinking about the threat of attacks as it has been a while since the 2002 and 2005 bombings here on Bali. For the most part I do avoid the major tourist areas however Ubud is getting so famous that it is more risky today than it was in the past. Please don’t worry about me as I feel anywhere these days has a risk of terrorist activity in the US and abroad. I have been reading the reports and I feel bad for the night club, money changer and jewelry stores that were named as a planned target I'm sure their business will seriously suffer for a while. I am sad for Bali as I'm also sure some visitors will be discouraged from vacationing here. Monday in Jakarta, the trial started for one of the terrorists in the 2002 bombings. No one here in Ubud seems to be talking about it or worrying about any threats... I only learned of out of idle curiousity.