It's Hot in Ubud.

I haven't felt 100% over the last week, partially due to the heat rash. Thankfully, that has subsided. I spent a couple of days laying low...which makes me wonder how low I can actually lay and for how long? I can't believe I've been in Ubud for 3 weeks already, much less away from home for over 10 months! I have become an expert in sleeping in, reading on the porch, lounging by the pool and relaxing at cafes. I must figure out the best way to list it on my resume! In all honesty, I'm ready to get moving again. I had intentions of leaving Ubud and seeing more of Indonesia last week, but decided to remain due to not feeling well.

To quickly summarize my activities of the last week: Wednesday - bed. Thursday - bed, rice field walk (pictures!) and Tibetan bowl meditation. Friday - pool. Saturday - pool. Sunday - bike ride. Monday - reading and cafe (rained all day!).

The Tibetan bowl meditation was an experience. We lied in a semi-circle facing the instructor on a yoga mat. He came around, after tying up his dreads, to rub incense on my 6th chakra (also known as my third eye). Then, he played the Tibetan bowls and walked around with them and played them around my head. I found it quite hard to actually get into a meditative state primarily because the music was pretty cool..you could feel the vibrations from the bowl literally going through your body...and so I kept thinking about how cool that was. Also, I was quite itchy from some previous mosquito bites.

As the bike ride was really the highlight of my week and certainly the most energy I expended, I'll give you an idea of what biking is like in Bali. Imagine the hottest day ever. Picture sleeping in, as you do, and not leaving until the absolute hottest part of the day. Now, bike through traffic to a nice little place you've found on your map which, being two-dimensional and all, looks like it will be flat land and easy sailing. How wrong you would be! You climb and pedal and sweat and climb and pedal and sweat, seemingly never reaching the top. You almost pass out from the heat at least 5 times and are forced to pull over and dump water on your head as the locals laugh at you for even trying. The moral of this story: never ride a bike in Bali. I learned the hard way why everyone here has motorbikes!

This weekend, I will be going with Gundula and Michael, a German guy who worked with us at the Earth Day Festival, to the Kintanami Awaredance 2 Trance Festival held in the volcano of Mt. Batur. Yes, that's right...from Friday until Monday morning, I will be living like a hippie under a tarp, on top of cardboard and snuggled under newspaper (I don't feel like buying another tent and sleeping bag just for the weekend and shipped mine home long ago!). Bucket showers, likely no sleep and lots of fun things will certainly transpire all in the crater of a volcano! I'm very excited! My next update will be from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I fly there on Monday night, assuming I'm still able to function long enough to get to the airport!

On a personal note, I'd like to publicly congratulate my brother and best friend, Gerad, who graduated from Florida International University with a Masters Degree in Construction Management last week. I'm extremely proud of him and look forward to sleeping on his couch and having him buy me dinners once I'm back home and broke! I love you Gerad!