When I Fight Authority, Authority Alway Wins

Well I guess ole John Mellencamp never lived in Southeast Asia, or he didn't have $2.50 to his name. I turns out that all it takes to bribe a cop for not having a license.

Life is a Carnival

My first week here, on my first trip to the night market to get dinner I commented that "life is a carnival". Walking through the street I was immediately taken to the South Carolina State Fair. It genuinely feels like a carnival here. Balloons, music, live animal smells, fried food... you get the idea. Dun (french guy) didn't get my reference to The Band or a carnival and instead he kinda gave me a blank stare. So I dropped it and moved on to listening to him complain about wine or cheese or something like that. Anyway, moving forward six months, this weekend Gianyar had a carnival. No change. The "carnival" was basically moving everything from the night market street and moving it two blocks over to the soccer field. Still nobody picked up on it trick the place was packed with at least five times as many people as normal, for the exact same thing. Needless to say I drank the cool-aid, ate some pop-corn and hopped on the merry-go-round.

Agung

Last weekend I hiked Gunung Agung with some friends of mine, conveniently, both named Chris. (The picture here is from the summit, looking southeast towards the Lombok and the Gili's). The volcano crater is 10308 feet above sea and you start the climb around 300 feet. It turns out that it gets really cloudy at the peak so your have to get there early in the morning to get a good view, and since the last 3 hours of the hike is a 45˚ + incline with nothing but loose rocks and strong winds camping doesn't make much sense. The hike takes about 6-7 hours there and about 5 to get back. So with a little bit of simple math we figured that we should start around midnight. The hike was pretty tiring and combined with no sleep and hiking in the dark made it quite a challenge but the views from the top made it all worth it. We got there minutes before the sun rose (causing a bit of a mad scramble up the last bit to make sure we didn't miss it). The picture below is looking down on the top of Gunung Batar, which, around 30,000 years ago was the tallest mountain in Bali until a massive eruption of lava and ash emptied the magma chamber beneath the volcano so rapidly that the top of the volcano collapsed into itself. Imagine watching some video of that! 

For more, better quality pictures check out facebook, it just didn't make sense to post them twice.

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Who knew the Esso club had gone international? The sweet tea wasn't quite up to par but I'm not complaining.

Shades of Bali

I've been trying to think of a way to describe of what life looks like in Bali. It's turned out to be more difficult than I imagined because Bali is an island of extremes and contradictions. 

Probably any images you can conjure up are accurate depictions of one part of the island and then completely wrong if you go a mile down the road. For instance, a few minutes from my house there are two multi-million dollar mansions set in a rice field surrounded by farmers who barely make enough to survive. Then there is Kuta, an Australian party town that puts TJ or Cancun to shame, compared with Ubud, a quiet tourist town where people go to "find themselves" or learn about traditional

 Balinese culture. Then there are beautiful mountains and pristine beaches next to piles of trash that make the city of Shanghai seem environmentally responsible. Also, it's a hindu island inside the largest Muslim country in the world. So you have people who follow rigid Islamic law surrounded by people who practice a form of hinduism where anything goes as long as you don't harm others. So here are a few pictures from around Bali that will hopefully do a better job of explaining Bali than I can....

 

 

mountains of north Bali

 

sunset at Kuta

my 7th graders

the teachers lounge

some of my 4th and 5th graders

view from my roof

the guys dorms

Kuta

traditional market

cremation ceremony

cliffs at Ulu Watu

Shameless Name dropping...

So this update, about a month overdue, is a bit long but I'll try to fill you in on what's going one here. First for those of you that don't know, I've finished my volunteering and decided to stay (somewhat indefinitely) and work for the organization that I volunteered with. However, do to visa issues the project coordinator had to go home until August so I'm trying to run things until he gets back. It was a bit hectic over the first few weeks but now I'm beginning to figure things out and everything is returning to normal. 

Also in other news Indonesia is experiencing the swell of the season. It's been around 2-3 times overhead with occasional quadruple overhead sets rolling in. It's been incredible and has kept up like this for over a week now and will go at least until the weekend. This means two things, first the surf has been unreal, second, everyone and their mother has come to Indonesia to surf. It's been pretty crazy to look down a line up and see the likes of Mick Fanning (former ASW world Champ)  Pepen Hindrix (the first ISC winner) or David Rasta. So apologies for the blatant name dropping, I'm just kinda I wide-eyed east coast kid out there and I still have to pinch myself when I see guys like that in the water.

My Heart Will Go On

First (yes that is the title of this post) I need to explain a bit about Indonesian music. In one word, cheese, and the more the better, it's awful. Secondly, just about every Indonesian song finds it's roots in either Bob Marley or Celine Dion, they're kinda like the royal family of Indonesian music. Now, in English club last week we were talking about music that we like and what are our favorite songs where. Naturally, "my heart will go on" ranked at the top of their lists. Then somehow the conversation shifted to national anthems. The kids wanted me to sing mine so I told them that if they sang "My Heart Will Go On" then I would sing the "Star Spangled Banner" for them thinking that there was no way they would. Turns out that I was wrong and they called my bluff. So after listening to 15 high schoolers pour their hearts in to a stirring rendition of Celine I began the anthem. (as I side note, if you've never tried to sing it before, it's a really hard song to sing and apparently no matter where I start my range can't handle it). Anyway after that they taught me the Indonesian Anthem (Indonesia Raya) and then they chased it with anouther round of "My Heart Will Go On".