I am the Zen Surf Master

Okay, well maybe not quite... but I stood up on my first try, and rode a medium-sized roller halfway into the beach! The surfing lesson was fantastic. With our lively instructor, Atung, we started on the sand island at the Hard Rock hotel pool, learning the basics, and then paddled around the gigantic pool learning the steps right up to the point where you actually try to stand up. Then we made our way out to famed Kuta Beach to attempt to put our knowledge to use.

Standing up wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be... or maybe I'm just a natural, heh. The waves were decent-sized... and I bit it hard a couple of times (mostly trying to avoid the 4 other people in my class), but I had quite a few good runs... stood up at least two dozen times (about 80% of the time I'd say)... and rode about a half dozen waves all the way into the beach, where I'd hop off into six inch deep water. Near the end I was actually controlling myself... turning left and right... avoiding swimmers...

And a word about Kuta beach -- it's not nearly as bad as some say. It's been fairly clean since I got here, it's relatively uncrowded for surfing (we could basically take any waves we wanted), the hawkers aren't bad, and the sunsets simply cannot be described, or put onto film. Last night's almost brought tears to my eyes... heh. Hopefully my camera did it partial justice.

Learning to surf on this, the most famous beach in Indonesia, was probably one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.

Damn, there's so many other great experiences I've had so far (and I haven't even left the south Bali Kuta/Legian area yet!) but again I'm itching to get off this computer and out into the night.

Tomorrow: trip up into the mountains/volcanos and Ubud; Tuesday: kayaking down the Ayung River; Wednesday or Thursday: cycling around the volcanos and down through the rice paddies, with a ride on an elephant at the end.

I'm addicted to this place -- I'm definitely coming back. Next time with more people...