Wanderlust

Wanderlust – a very strong, or irresistible impulse to travel

“Why do you want to teach internationally?”. This was a question asked at every interview at the Teachers Overseas Recruiting Fair. This is a question that every international teacher has asked themselves many times.  More so than any other interview question I’ve ever been asked this one had a feeling that there was a “correct” answer.  Many teacher's reasons range from experience a new culture, learn a new language, gain perspective and become a better educator through experiencing a new school system. But the one thing that all educators looking to teach abroad have in common is at least a little bit of wanderlust.

In the days leading up to my departure to Indonesia I was talking with my half brother Ian and his wife Jenny, both of whom are very well travelled. Jenny made a comment about her experience living in Whistler (British Columbia, Canada for my international readers who have not been fortunate enough to know anything about Canada). She said that it was an amazing experience but one day she realized that she goes to work everyday and comes home and does her laundry. And if that was what her life was, she would rather do it back home where her friends and family are.

I didn't understand the laundry comment at the time, but now I think I know what she meant. Once a new place has nothing else to offer you that outweighs the difficulties of living away from your friends and family, it is time to go back home.

3-7 weeks ago I had lost all of my wanderlust. Through my weeks of sickness, homesickness, and some frustrations and struggles with my teaching assignment I felt that there was nothing for me in Indonesia that could justify me being away from my friends and family back home for two years.

Then I went to Bali. . .

I realize now that there are so many opportunities and possibilities that exist for me in Indonesia that I would not have readily available to me if I were back in Canada. The opportunities to experience new cultures, the natural volcanoes, mountains, beaches, islands, surf waves, coral reef, temples, and diversity of wildlife that are available to me in Indonesia are astounding.

I left Bali with a much fuller suitcase than I came with, thanks to the 3 pairs of sunglasses, new flip flops, several paintings, and 5 new tank tops with names of the various islands I visited on them (bartering at the little shops for items you don’t really need is a LOT of fun). But I also left Bali with a much fuller heart than I arrived with. With all its incredible people and natural beauty, for the first time since I arrived, I started to love the country of Indonesia.

Now let’s go on a journey! Pack your bags, get your neon tank top and glo hat on and let's go!

Just a quick hour and 45 minutes plane ride. You can either a) do what I did and read The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein (pretty good read but I have to warn you it is narrated by a dog) or b) look out the window at this view the whole way:

Indonesia has so many mountains and volcanoes. And since I know someone was thinking it, the white stuff in the photo is clouds, not snow. No snow in this country. 

All teachers know that it is important to start off a lesson with a "hook", something that captures the audience's attention and will interest them in the topic. Just try to look at these next pictures and not keep reading ;)

Welcome to Kuta 

Welcome to Padang Padang

Welcome to Dream Land (I am not making up these names)

Gili Trawangan

More Gili T

Nusa Lembongan

Blue lagoon

Secret beach

I can't remember the name of the place where this photo was taken. Was it Paradise?

I arrived in Bali and met up with Jeremy, Kasandra and Aaron in Kuta. Kuta is the largest tourist destination in Bali and is overflowing with Australians. There is tons to do here but it is so busy that it is not where you want to spend your vacation, however it is conveniently close to the airport and you can catch transport (buses, taxis, ferries, even a helicopter) to anywhere else in Bali from Kuta.

The next 3 days were spent in Padang Padang, a much smaller place famous for its incredible surfing waves. In fact, overlapping with our time there was a world surfing competition. The surf was too flat for the competition while we were there so we didn't see any of it but I did attempt to surf for the first time in my life. I learned that trying to teach yourself how to surf based entirely on guessing is extremely difficult and I promised myself I would take lessons later in the trip.

On our first trip down to Padang Padang beach we were greeted by a bunch of monkeys. I put my stuff down to snap some photos and was robbed, oceans eleven style. It felt like one of those spaghetti western style films when the bandits hop on a train and steal all the bags with the dollar signs on them, and it isn't until the train conductor sees the dust being kicked up by the bandits' horses as they get away that he realizes the robbery he has just been made victim of. I felt like the conductor on one of those trains. 

While I was innocently taking pictures and minding my own business the stealthiest monkey of all time crept up and took my full 1.5L water bottle (the equivalent to my bags marked with dollar signs) . Noticing that I had spotted him he climbed up a wall and taunted me. He used his opposable thumbs and spun open the cap with one fluid motion. After rudely spilling about half of the water that didn't belong to him he used both his monkey hands and one of his monkey feet to tilt the bottle to his mouth and began to drink my delicious, cold water. I was too disgruntled and distracted to take a picture but Kasandra snapped a great photo which I will try to grab from her at a later date to a) show you all in a later blog post and b) help create the monkey wanted poster for the police so they can catch this thief. 

The entrance to Padang Padang beach involves a one-lane, narrow, winding staircase/cave that is made more complicated when people are carrying surfboards

This is a picture of me, on a rock. (Trevor, why would you include this photo, its a terrible photo and its boring). I would like the more keen observers to appreciate the tan I accumulate over this trip and this was day one when people would pull their sunglasses over their eyes when I walked past

On the day we left Padang Padang there was a huge ceremony on the beach. It was a Hindu ceremony. It was difficult to get all the details and piece together exactly what was happening but to my best understanding they were honouring those who died over the past several years and might have been wishing them well on their journey to their next life, as reincarnation is a big part of Hindu religion. 

The head ornaments, instruments, and many other decorations made for a beautiful ceremony. I actually sort of got invited to the ceremony and was sitting in the sand with the people in the photo below for quite some time listening to the drums play and wondering what was going on. Also, remember the winding tunnel in the photo above to get to the beach? Getting all these people down there was very interesting

Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world. With a population of nearly 250 million and about 90% Muslim, I am no rain man or anything, but that is about 225 million Muslims. After all, this two week holiday was the Muslim Leberan holiday to celebrate the breaking of the Ramadan fast. I wish that more westerners had the opportunity to live so closely to 225 million Muslims and maybe their skewed perspective about the portrayal of Muslim extremists, or terrorists, by our western media may finally change.

Although the most prevalent religion in Indonesia is Muslim, in Bali it is almost entirely Hindu. Someone (or maybe I read it somewhere) once told me that every Island you go to in Indonesia (and there are over a thousand of them) is like going to an entirely new country in terms of the differences in culture. I finally understand what they meant. I find the Hindu culture to be absolutely beautiful and fascinating. There are hundreds of deities, and each deity rides some sort of animal. Ganesh is the most popular of these deities and is the remover of obstacles. There is also a god of education and almost anything else you can think of. Because Hindus believe in reincarnation, one cannot convert to Hinduism, they must be born into it in another life. 

I literally have no idea what these statues are of but they are really cool

Everywhere in Bali there was beautifully sculpted statues of various deities

You cannot come to bali without getting handed hundreds of flyers for massages. If you are like me and the people I was travelling with you will take advantages of these massages. Prices range from $6 for a one hour massage to $13 for an hour and a half massage. Here is a photo with a couple of the massage ladies from our relaxing massage in Kuta.

The reoccurring theme of the trip for massages was that whichever girl massaged Aaron immediately fell in love with him. I don't think he minded too much

Nice little group shot at dream beach

As beautiful as the beaches are during the bright sunny day, their beauty reached a next level when it came time for the sun to set

I was approached by a representative from Sports Illustrated to be featured in the month of December for the 2014 Swimsuit Calendar. Poor Kate Upton will have to settle for November next year

This next story is tough to gage what the reaction will be like so I'll make it quick, and please keep in mind that Kopi Luwak is a delicacy on Bali and I was doing it for the cultural experience:

These are Civets

These cute little animals eat coffee beens. Then they excrete them. In the olden days, people would search through forests to find Civet droppings, now they just take it from their cage. Then they wash the coffee beans. . . really really well I hope

Then coffee gets brewed

 Then tourists are tricked not only into drinking the Civet poop coffee, but also paying $5 a cup for it. 

 Some tourists can't handle the Civet poop and go crazy

Honestly it was cool to try but I prefer Timmies

I told my sister Emma about the Civet coffee and she said "no wonder you got ecoli poisoning". At the end of our conversation I told her I was off to visit a place called elephant caves and she said "have fun but please don't eat any elephant poop"

This photo was at the Kopi Luwak place and I just love the diversity of plants and highly exaggerated flower colouration found in tropical countries

The longer we spent time in Bali, the more locals we met, and the more locals we met that were named Katuk. I thought to myself that Katuk must be to Bali what Katie is to Canada where there are a ridiculous number of girls with that name. Jeremy explained to me, and I had to research it a little more, the very traditional and interesting way that names work in Bali.

Step one:

The first-born child (boy or girl) in every family is named Wayan. The second child is named Made (pronounced ma day). The third child is named Nyoman and the fourth child is named Katuk. If a fifth child is born they are named Wayan, the sixth is named Made, the seventh Nyoman and eighth Katuk. A ninth child, you guessed it would be the third child in the family to be named Wayan.

Step two: Women receive the honorific “Ni” in front of their name as in Ni Katuk and Men receive “I” as in I Wayan, similar to Mrs. and Mr.

I found out that not surprisingly most Balinese people go by either nicknames that they acquire in the same way that we would acquire a nickname (through personality traits, or hobbies etc.) or by their family names, however when they introduce themselves to tourists they use their first name.

Our next destination was Ubud, which is the cultural capital of Bali. The one downside is that it is not on the ocean, but there is so much to do and learn that there is no time for the beach anyways. We had massages here once a day, there are yoga retreats if that's what you're in to, there is such a diversity of restaurants and there are so many rice fields and temples to see. Compared to the more popular places like Kuta and Gili Trawangon it is very cheap.

These were our digs in Ubud. Cheap, clean, swimming pool, breakfast delivered to your room every morning, this is where I will stay again next time I am in Ubud

We visited the Monkey Jungle which has many Hindu temples, and many monkeys. But don't worry, I was prepared after my previous monkey encounter and kept a good eye on all of them for any sign of thievery. You could purchase bananas just outside the entrance and the monkeys would climb on you, take them from your hands and eat them on you long enough to snap a few pics

We ventured over to the cremation temple and to our surprise there was an actual cremation happening. I thought it was just a demonstration or something so I was taking pictures like the rest of the tourists but definitely decided it was time to move on when we found out it was a real person being cremated

In order to enter the area that the next temple was in we were required to dress in some of the traditional Hindu dress including a sarong and scarf. Had there actually been a prayer happening at that time we would have been required to wear much more.  

At elephant caves we were required to wear sarongs again and the gentleman issuing them thought it was the funniest thing in the history of the world to give me a pink one

After making sure to go to a "babi guling", also known as a roast suckling pig for lunch we headed to Gili Trawangan. The Gili islands is a group of three islands technically in Lombak, which are a short boat ride from Bali. The Gilis, with its amazing food, night life, snorkling, diving, beaches and sunsets was my favourite destination of the trip. 

We met up with a group of 7 other teachers for our time on the Gilis and it was great to catch up with them and do some snorkelling, fine dining, some dancing, and just enjoying life.

Top from the left: Moi, Amy, Aaron, Matt

Bottom from the left: Kavita, Corey, Brad, Eli, Nate

One of my favourite parts of Gili T, is every day around 5pm everyone would head over to South Tip to a restaurant/bar and lounge around with some dinner or a beer and wait for the sun to set. The sounds of the waves crashing, the sand between your toes, the view of the mountains of Bali on one side, the view of the volcanoes of Lambok on the other side and the way the setting sun just decorated the sky with a sea of colours was one of the most relaxing and enjoyable moments I can ever think of. These pictures do not even begin to capture the experience and I cannot wait to take a beautiful girl to South Tip, Gili Trawangan to watch the sunset. 

When the sun goes down on Gili T, that does not mark the end of the night, in fact it is only the beginning. At South Tip, lanterns are set up and a bonfire is lit on the beach and there are fire performances every night. After watching some of that we would head over to one of many, many restaurant options. We had seafood, sushi, bbq, thai, indian, italian, you name it. There is even a night market on the island where you can buy some local foods including many of the fresh catches of the day from the sea. After a slow, relaxing dinner and a few Bintangs (the popular beer in Bali) we would head over to Soma Soma (roughly translates to no worries), which is the reggae bar where they have a live band every night. When that band starts playing it casts a spell on everyone in the bar and hips and bodies start moving as everyone dances to the live music. Soma Soma cannot last forever but even around 1 or 2 in the morning when that closes the night is still not over. The crowd moves to surf bar where there is a bonfire and the sound of the ocean waves and star lit sky make a perfect setting as the beach is turned into a dance floor.

Take me back to Gili T. . .


Other highlights of my time on the island include a snorkel tour around the gilis, a dive in which I saw a sting ray, a turtle, and a two sharks (I have a video of the sharks but again it is on Kasandra's camera).

Reluctantly we did leave the Gilis, and we took a boat directly to Nusa Lembongan. It was a wonderful place to wind down and relax and cap off our vacation. By wind down and relax I mean I fulfilled my promise to myself earlier in the trip and took some surfing lessons, went for two dives (saw two Mola Mola, which is a gigantic sunfish and is officially the largest fish I have ever seen in my diving career), and rented motorcycles and toured the island and neighbouring island Ceningan for lots of snorkelling and some cliff jumping.

Learning to surf definitely was one of the highlights of my trip. Such a cool feeling to have the wave take control of your board, stand up, and then ride the wave until it dies down. Then its time to paddle back and catch the next one. 

As with everywhere in Bali the sunset is just spectacular and Nusa Lembongan did not disappoint. My surf lesson on our last day was from 4-6pm so it was just finishing up as the sun was setting. After the lesson I was able to sit out on my board on the water and watch the sunset.

 Me and my surf instructor Khadil

On the very last day, we visited a beach resort called secret beach. It honestly felt like we snuck into a billionaire's pool.

At blue lagoon we jumped off a 15 meter (50 foot) cliff. I feel like this is an appropriate picture to finish up this blog entry because its epic and I would like to think it is symbolic of how ready I am to get out there and explore more of this beautiful country. 

 Until next time Bali

Sports day and more interesting cultural experiences

Today marked the last day of school before we get two weeks off for the Lebaran holiday. What made it even more exciting was that it was a half-day, and the half-day was sports day. So instead of heading to the school, all of the secondary students and teachers went to a sports stadium so the students could compete in various track and field events. Our school divides the students and teachers up into four different houses, very much like Harry Potter, and runs athletic and academic competitions throughout the year and will crown a winning house at the end of the year. I am the housemaster of the Red Rhinos. As well as the magical wizard powers that come with this position I am also in charge of organizing and coaching the red house at the various inter-house competitions. Obviously my house is Gryffindor and to prove it we have 7 siblings in Red house who all share very similar traits and athletic ability, which is essentially the closest thing I can think of to the existence of the Weasley family.  So after a quick warm up the kids prepared for a day of sprinting, relays, long jump, shot put, tug of war and of course Quidditch.

Red Rhinos!

Budhi, the Red house captain

There were a few mishaps with the timing and recording of winners for individual events, so they haven’t actually announced the winning house yet, but I am pretty sure I lead the Red House to victory and have solidified my status as one of the greatest wizards in Bina Bangsa School history.

On Thursday evening my Bandung crew (Alice the Aussie, and Kyle and Cassandra the Canadian couple) and I went to a really cool restaurant called magic oven before heading to the mall for groceries and a much needed backpack. I learned two interesting things at magic oven. I found out that there is very delicious pizza in Indonesia however the sophisticated technology that allows one to eat pizza without all of the toppings immediately falling off does not yet exist here. The knife and fork provided were not just a suggestion, it was the only option. Secondly, for the choose your own toppings option under "vegetables" they listed egg. Many of your first reactions might be "why do they consider egg a vegetable?" but the correct reaction is "why do they consider egg a pizza topping?".

One rule of thumb (as Indonesia has an incredibly high unemployment rate (I’ve read as high as 10%!)) is that many processes are designed to create as many jobs as possible. What I did not know at the time of purchasing my backpack is that in order to purchase things at this store you tell the lady at the counter which backpack you want, she fills out a form for you, then you go to a different counter and pay for the backpack and get the form signed, and then you go back to the first lady and give her the form in exchange for your backpack. Not overly complicated but this is how many, many things are sold and it seems much more complicated and inefficient than it needs to be. This backpack experience is where I learned another valuable lesson. I am a white person, who clearly comes from a far away land, speaks no Bahasa, and looks very confused. Which translates to they will kind of let me do what I want. The lady at the backpack store, after quickly failing to communicate to me that I can’t pay her for the back pack, took my money, went and grabbed her own purse and gave me change. It wasn’t until afterwards that Alice informed me I did it wrong and caused several Indonesians to be even more confused than I was. And trust me, I was very confused.

After sports day I was able to get to the bank and take out money for my two-week vacation in Bali, which I leave for on Saturday at 3pm (Woot woot!). I ended up having to wait almost 2 hours to exchange my American money to Rupiah so I told the other teacher who was showing me how to do everything that he could just leave and I would catch a cab. His reluctance to leave me alone, though kind of him, showed his lack of confidence in my ability to get around Bandung by myself. After the money exchanger I was walking down the street trying to find a taxi when all of a sudden it started to pour rain. As luck would have it I heard someone yell my name. I looked back to see one of my grade 11 students stick his head out the window of a car, and then the car pulled over. As it was raining I didn’t hesitate to take his ride offer and assumed it would be one of his parents who was driving. When I hoped in the car I found out the driver was another one of my grade 11 students. Now anyone who has every taught in Ontario can understand how I suddenly had a strong feeling that this situation was one that I could get fired for. The students asked me where I wanted to be dropped off so I read them the text message in my phone that has my address written in it. My address is Konstitusi 1, No 28. What does that mean? I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t know where my house was, and I clearly had no idea how to get back to my house, but luckily they were heading towards the school and I could catch a ride home from there with some of the teachers who stayed to prep after sports day.

I was trying to be a good conversationalist for my students and was really curious about how the driving licensing system works in Indonesia so I asked them how old you have to be to get your license. They said 17 or 18. Interesting that it is a range. I asked them if they had to pass a test in order to get their driver’s license. They looked surprised and said no. I asked my student how did he get his driver’s license. He said I’m not technically old enough to drive so I just slipped them some money and now I have a license. Oh, ok, that’s great. I am now in a vehicle with two of my students (which I’m still not sure if I can get fired for) who have bribed their way into a driver’s license, and have never taken any courses or written any tests in order to be able to drive. In Indonesia I always feel like I am rolling the dice any time I get into a vehicle with the traffic and non-existent rules of the road, but this was a particularly high-risk situation. I am happy to have two weeks off school before I have to face those two students again.

And with that, I will be away from blogging for two weeks until I am back from vacay, hopefully with some incredible pictures and stories to share with everyone.