Berawa Surf Competition

This morning there was a surf contest at the beach break about 100M from my house in Berawa. The swell was fairly small for any crazy moves, but it was fun to watch before I went out to rip it up 25 minutes away in slow Kedungu.

Tons of local dudes showed up- here they’re watching the heats.

It was a bit too early for a huge spectator crowd, so early in fact that these dogs were still dug into their warm sleeping cocoons.

Here is the one chica in the water making the most of the bitty waves.

And here’s another walking past in what to me looked like a skater costume- maybe she was on her way to a dance rehearsal. She certainly looked elegant, and luckily my photo of her captures that too.

Whatever, Whenever, and Howmuchever

It’s been about 6 months now that I’ve been able to, on most days, read whatever, whenever, and howmuchever I want. Joy. Serious joy. Unadulterated joy. Here are some of the better books that I can recommend:

The Other Hand by Chris Cleave

Breath by Tim Winton

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, especially if you can get your hands on the audio version- Barbara Kingsolver has a wonderful reading voice, and she is so talented with the subtle variations on a Tennessee accent.

Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett

I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass, and

Four Wings and a Prayer by Sue Halpern.

Uke on Youtube

I’ve outgrown the “Teach Yourself Ukulele” books and am in the process of exploring youtube videos to further my technique. It’s torture with a slow internet connection. The videos take 15 minutes to download, and then more often than not I realize that there’s little to learn from the demonstration. It’s a bit like being told that you can check out only one library book at a time for a research paper, and that you have to wait 15 minutes each time you want to change the book. Perhaps I shouldn’t complain given I live in paradise, but does anyone have more suggestions on how to advance technique sans instructor? Is it just practice, practice, practice?

Sacred Monkey Forest

I went to Ubud this morning for Galleries, the Sacred Monkey Forest, and Babi Guleng. I loved the decal on this moped parked outside the Ibu Oka Babi Guleng restaurant.
After nasty encounters with the Uluwatu monkeys (they stole my friend’s sunglasses and chewed them to bits) I was hesitant to go to the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud, but the cool temperature of the forest (& peer pressure) were enough to lure me in. It is considered a very holy site, full of many types of trees and an active temple: http://www.monkeyforestubud.com To my delight, the monkeys were a kinder, gentler group than I was expecting:




The most unnerving sight to me was this monkey sleeping in a tree- his expression to me was more human than his comrades who were awake.
And the funniest was that there was actually a sign pointing tourists towards rice fields. There are more rice fields in Bali than anything else. It’s like making a sign in New York that says “Skyscraper ahead”

And my favorite sculpture at the temple was this evil eye- watchout!

The "Speed" Bus' Cousin

My red moped developed a bad habit of not starting when I was far from home. Some sort of issue with the connection between the key & the battery, even though the battery was charged just fine. So instead of fixing the bike, my neighbor dropped off a different bike. The exchange of “issues” are that on the new bike the speedometer and odometer are defunct. So now I careen all over southern Bali guessing how fast I’m going- someone told me it will make me a better driver- keep your fingers crossed. The other issue is that I think the bike might be a cousin of the bus featured in the movie “Speed.” When the engine’s cold, and I go below a certain speed, the engine doesn’t explode, but it does roll over & die. Keeps me and the dogs sleeping in the street on our toes in the morning. PS some people asked for photos of the bike with the surfboard strapped to it- here goes:

Brisket

To balance out my obsession with Salak, I’m terribly missing my mom’s brisket. Perhaps it is because healthy looking cows live about 10M from my room. They are most vocal when I use the shower, and in bed just before I fall asleep. Or rather, correction, I notice them when my head is still and I’m hungry, they’re probably not louder during those moments. I’m happy that my house is surrounded by cow pasture instead of rice fields, given that mosquitoes lay their eggs in the still water of the flooded rice paddies, but I need to break the association between the moooo and the craving for tender brisket!

Salak

I’m back in Bali, and currently obsessed with a fruit called Salak, or in English, Snakefruit. The outside looks like snakeskin, and the inside fruit looks like giant gloves of garlic. The consistency is a bit like raw garlic but the taste is mellow apple-esque tanginess.