Nothing interesting
July 31st, 2008 by Pastor Sam
Deep Thought: I scrambled to the tip of the precipice where Michaela was waiting.
“That was fun,” I said.
“You bet it was,” said Michaela. “Let’s climb higher.”
“No,” I said. “I think we should be heading back now.”
“We have time,” Michaela insisted.
I said we didn’t, and Michaela said we did. We argue back and forth like that for about 20 minutes, than finally decided to head back down.
I didn’t say it was an interesting story.”
We did some scrambling today. We surfed Bingin. Honestly it was some of the best surf I have ever been out in. Looked like Hawaii. We surfed for 3 hours today and then the walk back up the cliff was a workout in itself. 152 stair steps up the cliff around houses that are perched right on the cliff. The surf was so good but it is crowded. With the ASP or WCT in town, it os probably more crowded than normal. And you hear every language imaginable in the line up; English with American or Australian accent, Spanish, French, Portuguese, even German.
The Internet availability has been sketchy. I haven’t posted since Taiwan. So, I have decided to write posts ahead of time and then copy them into my writer when I get to some WiFi. Let me give the bullet version of what has happened.
- Monday – Arrived in Bali about 4 pm. Michaela met me at the airport and we caught a taxi to my hotel in Kuta. Good hotel @ $11 per night with AC and hot water. Kuta is definitely a city with the sights and sounds of a 3rd world metropolis. Surfing is a big thing here. Everything is about surfing. Kuta is the birthplace of Asian surfing. After 2 days though, I was ready to get out of Kuta with the entire “Hey boss you buy…” “Hey boss, you need car?” “Hey boss, me love you long time.”
- I went to the Surfing the Nations banquet. I saw Lindsey and Eddie (he is the one the kids in youth pitched in and bought a new surfboard for). They had a traditional Balinese cookout. Food was fabulous. The 46 hours without sleep caught up with me and I started falling asleep at the table halfway through the banquet so Michaela sent me back to my room where I fell asleep for the night. That was good because I immediately became Balinated. (On Bali time)
- The next day, Michaela and I hung out all-day and bummed around. That was it.
- Yesterday we rented a car and headed up to Uluwatu where we have a house. It is crazy enough driving in a 3rd world country anyway but throw in driving on the left side and the steering wheel in the right and it was even crazier. 1st stop, we took a tour of the youth center that we support. You can check it out @ www.elevatebali.org. We hung out with Ado for a while and he gave us a tour and we talked about a team trip here next year. We then went to the contest at Padang Padang. It was the biggest surf, outside of Hurricane surf, that I have ever seen. These pros made it look so easy. We watched 8 time world champion, from Michaela and Skyler’s birthplace, Kelly Slater get a perfect 10 switch foot barrel in his heat. CJ and Damien Hobgood also won their 1st heats. After the contest, we surfed Dreamland @ 5’-6’. It is a beach break.
- Today we surfed Bingin, which was fun and my first day surfing over reef and no mishaps. Now we are back at our house napping.
I will try and post tomorrow and hopefully I will have something more interesting to tell.