Kuta: Good people watching, better surf

Travis and I went down to Kuta today to take surfing lessons. Kuta is like the Cancun of Bali. Read my description of Amed and imagine the opposite. The city was victim to terrorists attacks in 2002 and 2004, and the tourism industry still hasn’t fully recovered. It’s hard to believe with the mobs of chartered tourists milling about the shops, restaurants, clubs, hotels, etc.

We took lessons at Oakley’s Odysseys Surf School. It was the cheapest of the five we checked out – $30 for 2.5 hours, plus free water and hotel transfers – but I was happy with what we got. The lessons were a lot better than the ones I’d taken from some guy (Read: creep) in Maui forever ago. I was standing before my fifth wave, and I was pretty happy with how I was doing at the end of the day. It sure is an exhausting sport though. Fighting back out after every wave is what kills you.

We went to dinner in Seminyak tonight, and I’m going back tomorrow. The shopping looks fantastic!