Hello friends, I’m back already! I’m making an effort to keep this blog split up into manageable chunks, at least for the time being.

It’s been a pretty breezy, and fairly aimless, couple of months. The little trip around my visa renewal was a great success. I got a friend to join me and we spent a couple of days freediving at Menjangan Island, a tiny island off the northwest of Bali, which is part of the West Bali National Park. This trip was a lot of fun! It was interesting to be in a different part of Bali with a bit of a different vibe, still touristy but markedly fewer foreigners, and a different landscape to look at. The diving itself was quite good! This area is known for cool rock formations—I think it’s limestone, so it’s easily carved into fantastical shapes. There are several different cave/swim-through combinations, which is fun, and there were also several places with tall walls, which are beautiful to just cruise along. We were able to get a private boat both days so we went at our own pace and really took advantage.

I had been thinking about doing a longer tour of Bali after this but, tired and with a sore back, I decided to just head home to Amed instead. My main goal now was to learn to relax and make freediving fun again, with a side dish of getting in shape. I would say I have been moderately successful in this! I still don’t feel like I’m able to fully get into the deep relaxation zone as much as I used to be able to, but I broke down a fair amount of the tension and bad habits that I had picked up from teaching. I also started to exercise a lot more regularly, mostly either swimming laps or hiking up the short hill close to my house. That’s been really nice!

At some point a friend from Australia asked me if I wanted to join for a bit of a last minute surf trip to Java. It was great because she’d already picked the location and had friends who’d been before and knew how to get everything set up, so the whole thing was really easy. We went to a little surf town called Batukaras, about a 7 hour drive west of Yogyakarta. Overall the trip was really fun. It was great to catch up with my friend, and great to catch a few waves for the first time in… several years. It turns out I’ve still got it, however much of it I ever had (helped by the fact that this was a really chill longboard spot with a short paddle out).

The one bummer was that the looooong drive combined with surfing and a less-than-ideal bed had my back pretty shot. So I spent most of the time being extremely careful about my back and didn’t get to surf as much as I would’ve liked. Still a good time though, it was fun to just get to see a different part of Indonesia. This village actually hosted a lot more Indonesian tourists than foreign ones, which was interesting. At the end of the trip I decided to tack on a few extra days in Yogyakarta, which is a big tourist destination, but for completely different reasons than Bali. It’s a big cultural center, and also has a couple of old and tremendously impressive temple complexes in the vicinity.

The most famous one is Borobudur, which is the biggest Buddhist temple in Indonesia, or one of the biggest in the world, or one of the biggest Buddhist pyramids, or something (who remembers). It’s very impressive, with detailed carvings all around telling various stories, and a ton of buddha statues and stupas and stuff. It’s also on top of a hill, so there’s a beautiful view out from it.

The other temple complex is Prambanan, which is a huge Hindu temple complex. In point of fact I think both of the complexes have a bit of a mix of Buddhism and Hinduism, I think because their constructions spanned the lives of two different rulers, who had different religions. Anyway, Prambanan is beautiful as well, also has lots of carvings, and to my eye the Hindu temples look a bit more dramatic. There were also a lot fewer people and the whole thing is more spread out, so for me it was a nicer experience.

And then it was back to Amed again. I have to say, I am now fully ready for my time in Amed to come to a close. It’s been good and I’ve gotten to do lots of things in my two years here, but it is time to move on. I spent my week and a half there just getting my back better and exercising again, and then headed off for a quick trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand, which is where I am right now. The plan is to spend two and a half weeks around here, eating staggering quantities of delicious Thai food and hopefully getting out to some national parks and soaking up some nature. Then I’ll head back to Bali, where I’ll spend a few weeks getting rid of as much of my stuff as I can (I cannot wait) and packing up the rest.

And then…. Tenerife! I’ve heard lots of good things about the Canary Islands from several different people, and it really seems like Tenerife might offer a lot of the things I’ve been missing in Amed. There are several freedive schools there, so I’m going to try to see if I can get some work with one of them. The island offers serious hiking, surfing, and opportunities to play the sports like tennis and soccer that I miss so much. If I were to stay there for a while it would also be a great base to explore both Europe and Africa, which I’m pretty into. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though.

So that’s pretty much the state of things right now! Stay tuned for a summary of my time in Chiang Mai in a few weeks, if I get around to it. Otherwise, see you in Tenerife!