Every Day is an Adventure

Oh how every day is an adventure! I wake up every morning, and a smile appears on my face at the very thought of how absolutely anything could happen, especially here in Bali.

Today one of my few “tasks” of the day was to find the Yoga Barn, which is where I will be teaching (starting tomorrow). Bali Spirit, the studio I’m teaching at has 2 locations, one is their Cafe and small studio right in town, and the other is the new Yoga Barn (which wasn’t here when I was last year) located just outside of town. After my breakfast of banana pancakes and fresh fruit, some meditation, yoga, walk down to the river, and poolside reading, I set off on my motorbike to seek out the Yoga Barn.

It really only took me about an hour to find, which considering the traffic and the fact that I had a hand drawn cryptic map is pretty good. I got lost for a good 40 min of that hour, but I found that in my lostness I actually learned my way around Ubud much better. I just kept saying to myself as I took random lefts and rights, “you can’t really get lost if you don’t know where you are going to begin with…..” The town of Ubud is a very complicated and completely irrational network of one way streets. The concept of “grid” does NOT exist here, but it makes driving all the more enjoyable as you twist and wind every which way through the jungle. I almost hit a monkey, yes that’s right, a big fat monkey was sitting dead in the middle of my path as I rounded one of the many bends. I took it as a sign that I must be on the right path. Whether or not it would lead to the yoga barn was another story, but eventually it did.

The Yoga Barn is located among some terraced rice paddies which gives it a stunning location. There are two large studios, both gorgeous and completely open to the outdoors save for the roof. The selection of classes is equally impressive, including a sunday evening yoga flow class that they call “cello flow” because you practice to a live cello player. How beautiful is that?! I was intending to attend that tonight…but lets just say “Bali” got in the way. Let me explain.

After finding the yoga barn and going on a wild goose chase trying to get a Balinese cell phone (which was miraculously successful in the end), I decided to go home, drop off some stuff and then come back into town to go to the cello flow class. As I was cruising down the main road of Ubud, my motorbike decided it had had enough of the hard life on the road, so it up and quit mid traffic. I carefully maneuvered it over to the side of the road, trying not to cause too much commotion, which proved very easy considering the constant on going commotion caused by everyone else. I tried every trick in my book to get the little guy up and running again, but it soon became obvious that someone with a bit more mechanical skills than my own was going to have to be involved in saving the motorbike’s life.
Ok, so now what? I figured I would go to the shop, inform them of the ill state of the bike, and go from there. I hitched a ride to the shop by a man who turned out to be a painter and we had a lovely chat about how painting creates more beauty in the world (only in Bali do these conversations occur on a regular basis!) When we got to the shop it was closed. Sunday. Damn. Now what? I decided that I might as well go home since I had a ride, and deal with it from there. I managed to find the number of the woman who rented me the bike and had Dewa, my Balinese friend and who I now refer to as my Balinese angel, call her and see what could be done. A few minutes later I got a call on my cute gheto pink Balinese cell phone from Dayu, the woman who rented me the bike. She is cheery as ever, and tells me how sorry she is about the bike. How not to worry, she will go get it and bring a new one to my hotel by 6pm. It would be sooner but she is in Temple and must sing and dance for a few more hours.
She is very sorry for the dely. I am delighted at how simple and joyous every potential disaster turns out to be in Bali. Oh if only the rest of the world could learn to be like that!! There would be a lot less disease caused by stress, I tell you that much. Maybe we all need to sing and dance a bit more too