Walking in and around Ubud, this is the words I most often use. I have earlier posted about Balinese friendliness, and there is no going back on that. But the amount of offers presented in the streets are borderline overwhelming.

“Taxi?!?” “Maybe tomorrow???”
“Massage???”
There is no denying that Ubud is raised and based on tourism. This means that there are services here anyone might need. Still there are an abundance of the same service providers around. There are taxi drivers every 20 meters and there are Spa’s with no less frequency. The result should be easy enough to guess: There are few clients to every service provider, and therefor the service must be advertised. The easiest way is to shout out the name of your service to anyone looking like a tourist. The fact that they may be across the street, or carrying bags both back and in front – Do not seem to deter from calling out. Neither does the fact that you just offered me the same service 1 minute ago. It’s possible we all look alike (meaning white middle aged men with short hair.)

From walking to and from restaurants, or training halls we have gotten quite good at expressing “no, thank you”. By gestures, voice or looks. We try to be nice and polite, and sometimes we even get a “you’re welcome” back. Friendliness pays off.

Katja heads off to breakfast, then a Vinyasa flow class with Bex before the last day of the Teacher Training starts at 11. I’m a bit hung over from the Bintang yesterday and play it cool until breakfast at 9:30. I drive over to Hubud and spend more time “investigating” the use of WordPress and suddenly it’s time for lunch. Or way past lunchtime, really.

I turn around in the room, just getting intpo my yoga outfit and head down to the barn for a Vinyasa class. Bex teaches four classes today, and I get in on the last one. She smiles when she sees me and exclaim happily:” Wow, I get one of you in the morning training and one the the evening. How lucky am I?” Such sweet words from a great girl.

Katja shows up before class is over and sit and watch the last fifteen minutes. She’s finished. She’s an official yoga teacher! Hurray! We walk home together and bump into Les on the way. I guess it’s tough run for him to give so much teaching in such a compressed time and environment. I believe he’ll enjoy a couple of days with Joe to relax and reload. We are going back up here to Ubud to attend his class on Tuesday. Or rather, I’ll attend, Katja will assist in the class.

The class is going out for drinks and we join them at the Laughing Buddha. I’m driving. I got enough Bintang yesterday, mind you.

At the Laughing Buddha the spirit is high and live music makes it even higher. Everyone praise each other and promise to keep in touch. A lot like any other camp we’ve been to. The music is good but loud. Being through all they have these last week’s people are tired. The party mainly breaks up when the band takes it first break and people can say their goodbyes. We get oh the bike and ride through town back to the hotel with a tempting bed.

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

– Frank Herbert