1. Gnarly
2. Gnaralicious
3. Radical

Three words I heard myself (and only myself) using excessively while learning how to surf in Bali this weekend.

Jose and I hopped on an air asia flight on Friday afternoon and spent a few days in Kuta, despite numerous travel warnings from all sides. It was a really interesting and generally spontaneous trip that kept me entertained, even if slightly sleep deprived. We stayed in the budget-ish Hotel Sorgawi for 15 U.S. each. The accommodations were simple but overall comfortable and clean. Breakfast was included, and provided me with ample mee goring in the mornings. Honestly, the only drawback were the roosters that start doing their thing at like 6 in the morning. Ugh… the walls were pretty thin, so the Roosters and their cries got a little too close for comfort.

We didn’t arrive until nighttime on Friday, so we dropped off our stuff, and decided to do a little wandering. The wind took us to the monument of the 2002 Bali bombings… a grim reminder of Australia’s aptly timed travel warning. However, the wind also took us to the bar/club Eikon, where Surfing videos were being screened and various TVs and locals slash surf bums mixed freely. We hung around there for a bit, and I tasted Bintang bir – the drink was generally nice and I had several more during my stay. Soon, awkward wanderings back and forth through the crowd got old and we made our way to Bounty – a large club with a pirate ship theme. Sounds like a great premise, right? Anyways, this place was nuts – contrary to Eikon, the Bounty crowd was made up of almost 82% tourists. Actually, many of these were young Aussie guys wearing only boardshorts. It was pretty much the universal style there. By the time we arrived here, everyone there was pretty sauced up, so it was entertaining. I also drank some reasonably priced giant fruity drinks. I wore boardshorts.

On Saturday afternoon, Jose and I braved ProSurf and went for a half day surfing lesson. It went smoothly and I managed not to injure anyone, including myself. While I didn’t stand up on my board the first try, I did manage to get up on my third. So… take that world. But yeah it was definitely a really fun experience! And left me hungry for… well, food.

Wandering the streets of Kuta was really cool, but involved braving a neverending gauntlet of peddlers. I have braved many gauntlets of peddlers and I must say that the ones in Kuta are aggressive! It wasn’t uncommon to have someone try to physically drag me into the store, or block my path on the sidewalk. Also… haha I got called handsome a lot by women trying to sell me boardshorts and sandals. I bought one pair of flipflops. Interestingly, many of the street vendors also apparently doubled as drug dealers? On numerous numerous occasions, after someone would offer us money changing, necklaces or clothing they would redouble their efforts with “Hey boss – hashish? Hashish? Marijuana? Magic Mushrooms? Boss! Boss!” sometimes it would be the reverse – after saying a firm no thank you to drugs, they’d offer souvenirs. Interesting, no?

That evening, Jose befriended two locals, Martin and Tinto (Tito?) while playing soccer on the beach. They invited us to hang out with them that night… so we did. We met them after dinner, and hung out on the beach for the majority of the evening. Our group consisted of the four of us plus a couple from Jakarta on their honeymoon. Haha, for some inauspicious reason Martin and Tino decided to ditch them as the night wore on. While I was originally unsure of our new friends’ motives in hanging out with us, I soon concluded that they were generally nice.

On Sunday morning, Martin and Tino drove us about 40 minutes out of Kuta on the backs of their motorcycles. Wow… I’m not going to lie, I was very scared. I’ve never sat on the back of a motorbike before, especially not in Indonesia. But we survived, and Jose and I ended up going diving at a watersports place that Martin used to work at (I’m sure he got compensation for bringing us there). Jose had never dove before, so we just did a shallow dive a few hundred meters off the shore. Nevertheless, it was a very nice dive, and we saw some cool fish.

We got back to surfing in the afternoon, and took and hour of lessons from our new friends. Things went much better the second time around and I found myself getting up on the board more consistently – plus the weather was beautiful. By the time we started surfing, low tide was… well… getting lower, and so waves were coming in and breaking fast. This made it a little difficult – especially breaking through those on my way out form the shore.

I caught one epic wave – I’m not sure what made it so great, but I managed to successfully ride it almost all the way back to shore. I was very pleased as I swam out towards the sunset.

Ah! To be continued… I’m writing this from a Coffee Bean that’s closing up around me! More to come plus pics.