Shopping in Ubud...yes, it's a basket full of penises.

Give thanks -- the water returns

In Bali the rice paddies are irrigated by a water management system built around temples. The allocation of water is determined by the local priest. Subak, as it is known, is the oldest, continuously used irrigation system in the world, functioning since about 1023.

Last January, the system broke.

Penastanan -- a village set in a rice paddy nestled between Ubud and the Monkey Forest -- has been dry all year. The fields have gone fallow or been planted over with corn. "It's usually a very feminine atmosphere up here," my yoga teacher Rachel Hull, who lives here full-time, told me when I arrived. "Burbling water. Lots of frogs. It's eerily quiet now."

She told me they were going to fix the system in a week, but I was skeptical. And I was wrong. On Monday night the local temple held a re-opened the cistern. Since then the water has been snaking its way through the fields. Slowly slowly. I'll record the sound when it starts again...

FV goes to Bali.....

Ubud -- the name means medicine in Balinese.

Seekers come here from all around the world for healing. You've got your raw food, organic this, yoga that... you can even take Esalan Institute courses or get your astrology chart done.

You can still get cheap massage and rooms -- it'd be a great place to come with a lover, fuck loads and then get back to the massage table. Barring that, I feel a bit like a bull in the China shop. Ah, to be a cock in the hen house instead. Well, hope springs...