So, our story begins at a sickening hour in the town of Ubud at the Rumah Cinta. At the spike of 2 o’clock in the morning, a powerful voice bellowed towards a boy of the name Otto Sharples. The voice came from a man named Dad. “Wakey Pakey”, the voice spoke in a melodic fashion, the same tone you would use to shout “yodale heehoo”. Otto, laying in his bed, in a deep, deep slumber was all too annoyed when the blade of his father’s voice pierced into his sleep. He was especially flustered due to his lack of shuteye. He folded his thin layer of covers away from his legs and swung his weight over the edge of his bed, simultaneously letting out a low grunt. His face formed into a hefty scowl. He expanded the crack in his white mosquito net and walked out in a wobbly manner. He slowly stomped his way down the tiled staircase holding onto the wooden rail, still displaying an angry face. He saw Dad, Yve and Wescott waiting at the front door of the house already prepared with shoes and daypacks. Otto had his clothes on and his backpack pre-packed, anticipating his mood the day before. Slipping on his mud stained green and black sneakers without untying the laces, he hopped on one foot over to his string bag filled with snacks and tightened the opening at the top.

Otto and his family rushed out the door without conversing and walked through the oak entry gate of the villa onto the walking streets of Penestanan. They hustled down to the main street of Ubud, not surprised to see Juli, their driver, waiting with his car. They exchanged greetings and got in. Otto immediately continued his sleep with his head pressed up against the glass window. While Otto slept, the car stopped at David’s hotel. He was a friend visiting Project Equator and wanted in on the volcano climbing action.

“Otto we’re here!” Otto’s eyes opened to a blinking rhythm while they adjusted to the LED lit parking lot. He crawled out the car and spread his arms wide causing a gliding yawn. Some anxious tour guides quickly targeted Otto and his family, haggling with them to try and be their guide for climbing the volcano. One tour guide was selected and escorted the group of volcano-bound adventurists to a room with a small plastic table lit by a single bulb that attracted hundreds of bugs.  This is where they would pay for the tour and get the down-low on what type of hikes they could chose from. The hike that really caught their attention was the 5-hour hike. “The five hour hike is the longest. Your guide will take you up to the rim of the volcano and cook you breakfast. After you watch sunrise, you’ll hike around the rim for a little bit and then check out the volcano which erupted in 2000. You can still see bubbling lava and steam coming out”, the man lecturing in the room explained.

With visions of lava and steam, the group unanimously decided that they would take the 5-hour hike and they were on their way. As they all started to walk onto the trail a pleasant surprise excited them.  Juli, their driver was walking along with them. “Juli your coming!” they all exclaimed. They tried to convince Juli days before to come with them but he didn’t want to commit for fear of being too tired after the long drive.

Juli, David and the Sharples trekked uphill, up a steep rock slope panting hard and every once and a while, taking a swig of water to make up for the sweat they had lost. Otto’s thighs were burning, but the image of a beautiful sunrise and a scenic view of bubbling lava kept him going. Finally, they had made it to one checkpoint where 50 others were resting as well. The benches were all occupied but they still had time to catch their breath and take a few gulps of water. After 5 mins, they set off again to get to the place where they would watch sunrise.

The group arrived at the next checkpoint 20 mins later and luckily they were the only people resting at that checkpoint along with the tour guides. They cooled down quickly because of the crisp cool breeze that skimmed the rim of the volcano. Eventually, they got cold themselves and were in search of warmth. All prepared with coats, they bundled up as much as possible but still couldn’t get warm.  Fortunately, they were on a volcano, and there is nothing hotter on the surface of the earth. The tour guides pointed out some steam holes that they could sit by to warm up.  Otto sat there for so long that when he left, he was colder than before because his skin and hair was moist to the point that it was dripping with moisture from the steam.

Many pictures were snapped at the sight of the rising sun over the neighbor island Lombok.  A horizon of pink, orange and red colored strips of cloud, with a glowing orb of light slowly warming the air, memorized everyone.  The sky was beautiful.  A cresent moon sat over head as the sun painted the sky with warm colors and a lightning storm flashing miles away.  The scene started to get more and more crowded during sunrise, but Otto and Wescott sat closely by the warm steam vents to get away from the crowd.

While Otto and Wescott bathed in the aroma of warmth, a hairy human-shaped creature passed right in front of them, only a couple of feet away.  Second later, many others creatures followed.  It was a pack of monkeys in search of a quick bite.  The pack of juvenile monkeys walked into the crowded area of the checkpoint.  The funny thing about monkeys is that humans are more scared of them then they are of us, so they’ll use fear to their advantage and frighten their way to a banana in their hands, no problem. The tour guides and terrorized tourists fed the monkeys many bananas and one monkey even snagged a person’s plastic bag filled with food. It was clear that these monkeys do this every morning, because they were pros.

With the sun glowing upon their faces, it was time for the humans to hike along the rim of the caldera. With a smile of joy on everyone’s faces, they walked along the crumbly path surrounded by tall golden grass. Every footstep was a crunch of the loose gravel. They looked down the steep slope of the volcano at the black hardened lava flow.

I’m grateful that my dad was blessed with the gift of persuasiveness, because I would have missed out on a killer sunrise, a high quality work out, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And the fact that we saw monkeys even doubled the awesomeness factor.  If you didn’t notice Otto is actually me, the narrator. The goblin under the broccoli tree is another story

Our group at the top after sunrise! (left to right: David, our guide, Wescott, Juli, Yve, Dad, me)

Wescott and I enjoying some tea at the top.

Yve and David.

The monkeys taking off with some of the breakfast items.

The guides cooked the eggs in the steam vents.

Epic views in all directions!

We didn’t see bubbling lava but we did see a lot of steam holes which was super cool!

Crater rim hike….definitely worth doing the 5 hour version!

Wescott, Yve and I, as you know, are surfers. On this trip, we’ve been fortunate enough to surf in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Zanzibar (kite surfing), and now in Bali.

My mom and dad were thoroughly reading the Green School’s website when they were fantasizing a scenario of us going there for school. During their research, they stumbled upon an extra curricular activity that the Green School offers for their students…surfing. Dad contacted the mastermind behind the surfing academy, an Australian named Colin,  and told him we were interested in mooching off of there surf school…of course we didn’t put it that way  Colin sent a message back and said he was happy to guide us on the road of wave riding on the island, so we dove right in three days after we arrived in Bali.

Yve, Wescott and I with our Green School surf instructor at Serangan Beach.

When you surf in Oregon the water is pretty much freezing year-round, but Bali is the opposite. Board shorts, a rash guard and a surf board is all you need to shred the gnar.

Yve and I heading out for a lesson!

Here is the video….again, not pro, but it gives you an idea of what biking in a small Chinese city is like.  I have to admit that, while it scared me to death, I loved every minute of it  Video credits go to Wescott and Jones for this one who tied my iPad with string to their bike basket

Advanced filming technologies were used in the making of this video

Everybody on their bikes ready to head home after a great meal at Mood Food.

Whizzing by in Yangshuo!

The four of us traveled away from the hustle and bustle of the city, out through the elaborate city gates and into the countryside of Yangshuo. For 40 minutes each day, we were part of the countryside scene, complete with roosters crowing, people putting out their laundry, farmers tending to their crops and commuters sporting their innovative umbrella contraptions atop of their motorbikes. We got to soak it all in…all with the backdrop of the jaw dropping karst peaks dotting the landscapes in every direction.

*****

One of the best things about traveling for a year, is I have been able to read a ton of books…books that I would have never found the time to read at home. I just finished rereading a favorite from my high school days…Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It is still an awesome book for those of you who haven’t read it for 30 years!  On page 4, I was struck by a passage that made me think about our bike riding in Yangshuo…

In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it, you don’t realize that through the car window, everything you see is just more TV. You are a passive observer and everything is just moving by you, boringly, in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.

I realized that THIS is what I loved about biking in Yangshuo…even if it wasn’t on a motorcycle WE got to be part of this scene! This cool, crazy, foreign, sometimes-very-scary, awesome scene!

*****

Below is a video of our bike route. It is shaky, choppy and definitely not pro It was taken with the iPad tied on a string around my neck because we lost the GoPro power cord It is a horrible video but despite the quality, you can still see the awesome beauty of the Yangshuo countryside and you can understand why it is worth trekking half way around the globe to do it yourself…enjoy

Heading back to Sam’s after class through the tai chi school alleyway!

Bodies move every which way. Arms and legs flail about trying to keep balance. Stretching until you feel like you’re going to rip in half. Unexpectedly finding comfort in the strangest positions. This is yoga. Trying to keep the breath steady, music fills the ears and above all, one voice is heard keeping in time with the rhythm. The teacher. Her name is Yanzi. Her exuberant presence floods the small room with extreme happiness, joviality, and witty humor. She’s honestly the main reason why this experience was so amazing. You could almost see the glow which blinds out the greyness from outside. Time passes quickly as each pose melts seemingly into the next.

Every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays limbs get slightly more flexible. Every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays minds get slightly more relaxed. And especially every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays there is a Tuck and Jones free morning. It’s safe to say that it really is our own mini yoga retreat. Nobody wants this time to end. Luckily though, we have kombucha and our one and only favorite organic restaurant waiting downstairs for us.

10:30 am
Namaste.

i was stretched to new heights / crazy positions! who knew i was that flexible?!

otto and yanzi perform a handstand w/o any hands or head !

cirque du soleil here we come?

it actually would’ve been comfortable & relaxing if wescott hadn’t kept moving and digging his spine into my back…. he seems to be enjoying it though

the students and the teacher on the last day of classes

Here we are at Yangshuo Traditional Tai Chi School!

I had little knowledge that corresponded with the words Tai and Chi before Yangshuo. When someone said Tai Chi, I thought of people in a park swaying their arms up and down with their eyes closed.  I always thought of it as a way to relax or stretch.  Although some people do use it this way, it was originally developed as a martial art.  One of the first things I noticed when I walked into the Tai Chi school was the amount of practice swords and axes there were laying around….that was the moment I decided that Tai Chi was going to be more fun than I originally thought

Here is a bin of some of the practice weapons they have at the school.

This is the outside studio that they built for classes.

Last day of class!

This is the front entrance to the school.

Wescott and I heading home after Tai Chi.

You are probably thinking to yourself, where is the part about bacon?  The truth is, I don’t have anything to say about bacon but mom told me that she learned at Allrecipes any email with bacon in the title gets read twice as much as one without the word, so I thought I would try it with a blog post….did it work?

Otto had his crutches on the raft!

We stopped and took this picture

Mom and Jones made a video!

As I swam through the underwater paradise, my mouth started to become dry from the crisp oxygen I was breathing. From time to time, I was going down to the coral, and would wave my hands over the feathery anemones. You know how in the movie Avatar, Jake goes out on his first day and finds these weird looking plants that shoot back into the ground right as he touches them? Well it was kind of exactly like that.

It was very peaceful under there. I tried to figure out what it would be like to be a fish, swimming free in the clear-as-day water; having colorful and oddly shaped coral everywhere you look; and having neon dance parties in the nighttime….it seemed like a pretty good gig

This experience inspired me to get my diving certification in Bali, so I can dive in the Great Barrier Reef!