Bali, day 1

The adventure started going through airport security in Perth- in my carry on, I had multiple miron glass bottles (block all light, including x rays) in my carry on.  Once they went through the scanner, security searched through all my bags and opened up all my superfoods... fortunately they let me keep them.  So the miron glass definitely works to protect food from being fried by x rays!  Alys and I arrived in Bali at midnight only to find that the driver that had been arranged to take us to Ubud, one hour away, was nowhere to be found.  We waited 45 minutes before giving up and going to ask taxi drivers how much it would cost.  The only problem was, we only knew the name of the villa we were going to, but not the address or location and none of the taxi drivers had any idea where it was.  We found one guy who agreed to drive around Ubud looking for it for as long as it took to find it for $50.  We decided this was our best option, so he drove us out to Ubud and we drove up one skinny street and down another and another and another.  On the outskirts, the taxi driver decided to turn around and head back into the center of town and just then on a little wooden sign above a doorway, he saw the words "Villa Gaia"- that was it, we found it, totally by accident and miraculously!

It was now 2 AM, and knowing I only had a few hours to sleep before 6 AM yoga practice, I slept grounded and inverted and woke up feeling fully energized.  After yoga practice, we started arranging the retreat space, met the chef Sayuri, went through the Ubud markets (hectic!).  Then I rented a scooter ($20 for the week)- driving around on the roads here is so gnarly!  People everywhere on bikes, on foot, on motorbikes, in cars!  Later in the afternoon we drove through a monkey forest, with little monkeys all over the place! It was wild!  Then we got to see a very interesting ashtanga ashram and next to it a massive three story ultra elegant bamboo house that was like nothing I've ever seen before.  From there, we went out for dinner.  I had to stop to buy a razor, having forgotten to pack mine, on the way back from dinner.  Bali is wild with so many streets and I had just been following other people around all day to get wherever I needed to go.  But Sheridan told me just to follow this same road and it would take me back to the villa... I was a little apprehensive, but I said okay.  After buying the razor, I followed the road for many kilometers... and finally it came to a fork- the first sign that something was wrong.  I picked left, and drove for 15 minutes... nothing looked familiar.  I went back to the fork, now getting cold being out in the open air in the evening.  I went right at the fork... nothing looked familiar for a long way.  I went back into Ubud, drove all around... trying to ask for directions, but everyone either didn't speak English, or had no idea where to find the street I was looking for.  This went on for 3 hours!  I was really missing my GPS!  (It turns out the directions I was given left out several key turns!)  At one point, going up a hill, I ran out of gas!  I had to push my bike half a kilometer to the nearest gas station to fill back up and I was still no closer to figuring out where I was or where I was going.  I stopped at an internet cafe to try to figure out where I needed to go on Google maps... but the "show my location" function wasn't working.  Finally, some guy walked into the cafe and he knew where I needed to go!  Ten minutes later I was back at the villa... what a crazy adventure.  My first day in a new country and I spend 3 hours driving all around these little wild streets completely lost!  It was intense, but I think I enjoyed the adventure!  This afternoon we start the yoga retreat, I'll be teaching superfood, superherb, and longevity lifestyle classes.  Check out my morning view...