I spent the first day in Kuta which is very touristy. The beach is nice but its crammed with cheap clothing and nik nak stalls. There are also more surf shops here than in all Sydney put together!
We were lying on the beach at sunset watching the classic postcard sunset, like wow, and all of a sudden the military trainees jog by along the waterfront in full uniform with machine guns or semi automatics or something scary looking slung over their shoulders. Very very trippy in such a full on tourist place!
The second day we met this surfie dude, theres a lot of them, who told us to go to this beach on the penisular where all the surfers go cause there's an amazing reef break. Spontaneous leap into a taxi and Trina and I, one of the women I'm teaching with, are in the middle of nowhere, struggling down this huge cliff to homestays on the beach, facinating rockpools and grottos and peace and quiet. Perfect.
For the past week we've been based just out of Ubud staying in a beautiful house overlooking a deep gorge and swimming hole. mmmm. You can hear the waterfall at night and stare at rice paddies all day if we were'nt learning so much. In the morning we have 3 hours of Indonesian and i've learnt more language here in three days than I did in Thailand in three months, which is a bit of a relief since I'm going to be spending the n3xt 6 weeks in a small village called Baturiti. Trina and I will be living with the village headman which will be really interesting. Yesterday we had class at the market in Gianyar where Hannah will be teaching.
The other night Hannah and I had this indulgent massage where you're in this room overlooking the rice paddies and after being massaged in an oil of frangipani, lavender, jasmine and maybe geranium we got covered in this tumeric ginger and clove exfoliant, scrubbed down and then covered in yogurt before hopping into a bath filled with petals while drinking ginger tea and eating fruit. Mangoes are in season at the moment and I'm in heaven!
Tomorrow we finish classes and then are heading out to the beach for a couple of days before being dropped in our repective villages. I gave a mock lesson today in teaching class and realised how difficult this will be at first. The schools I'll be teaching at haven't had any real exposure before so I'll probably be starting from fresh. I'm excited about the learning curve for
me and them and looking forward to hanging out in the country with space and quiet.