Bali Bliss - The Beach

After a sumblime weekend in the magical kingdom of Ubud we then descended down to the beach, Seminyak to be precise. I was staying at Jamie's place, one of the "Balinese" who's family came to the island over 30 years ago. Not actually Balinese but from New Zealand but as local as they come, great guy, an amazing surfer, with a compound he is converting in the middle of Seminyak, not to mention the coolest girlfriend ever, Merissa, they really took care of me.

Shopping in Seminyak is not to be missed . . .Susan and I fell in love with the tin things, I am told they are for ceremonies (I lugged one back to bkk for susan). I am also in love with Biasa and will always be.

Then of course the surfing . . .I got SLAMMED on the first day but was then rescued by a dude who thought I was crazy to keep going back in and getting caught in close-outs. He turned out to be friends with Jamie and is working on his surf film shot with a 16 mm camera, probably one of the last surf films to be shot in film .. . he showed me the long version of the trailer, it felt totally different, very refereshing . . .It's called Hangs Upon Nothing. I have not seen anything like it and as Jeremy's background is as an animator, well, the artwork that comes with it is quite special. For that I am glad I got slammed by close outs to see something new, with a lot of soul, love how he shows the journey and the graininess of it, you have to be half crazy to take a camera in the waves and he does exactly that. It was out of pity and sheer amazement that I think Jeremy came to talk to me. That was the only day like that though, the other surf days were smaller gentle and perfect. Next time I will learn the tricks.

Seminyak

Obessessed I was still with sambal mata and simple warungs. This is the one in front of Jamie's place, only open at night as the dude works the days as chef of Waterbomb, the water park.

a little customer

Chef

And also living like a hippie or at least version 2.0 of hippie-dom where I was connected to wifi and able to work at my own pace, still connected to the world, yet unconnected at the same time. That is bliss.

Kitsune did a night in Bali, that was interesting, wish Andre was around. The Balinese promoter kids were very sweet, I met Luigi with Hamish, not sure however, if the non-local counterparts (not the French) understands much the concept of letting loose and not giving a toss, necessary ingredients for having a good time and and that money can't buy you love (Bali gets it, so does Bkk). Nonetheless, I had fun and it was nice to see old friends, from everywhere.

Kim and I

Merissa and I

Then it was to Uluwatu to Saloni's place where the architecture did feel like it rose from the ground and the view when sitting in the pod called Tatouin is that of the water meetin horizon or what infinity would look like anyway to me.

Totouin (reference is Star Wars)

Saloni

Mystery twin kittens (friends with Dog called Dude)

Giorgio and I

What fun the day was and I left after Josh Green handed Panama over to Giorgio . . .

From Uluwatu I went to Metis, the sister resto to Warisan to dinner with old friends from london - I love how in Bali the world converges especially because of Andrew and Jonathan's wedding also Nicki's and Rekha's - yes, Bali is the island of the gods as well as of weddings . . . and exodus. . . .