Authentic Bali Experience

Alright, so I knew on this trip I was going to encounter non touristy authentic local experiences....I just didn't know it would happen this early in the trip! There is a security guard named Maday that works in the hotel Freddy and I are staying at, he invited us to stay with him and his family in a village about 3 hours away (I think he just wanted a ride)...so we agreed. We also wanted to go surfing in a place called Medewi which was about 20 minutes from his village, perfect. Showed up at his family's place, it was a bunch of little shacks on a piece of land, his whole extended family lived there. This was not like Kuta, hardly anyone understood a word of english, we had many awkward moments when nobody would talk, or we'd pretend to understand what the other was saying. We headed to a shady little building down the street, Freddy and I bought about 20 little 5 inch fish out of a shady looking container for 30,000 Rp ($3). Headed back to his family, they cooked the fish over dried burning coconut shells. A whole bunch of people in the neihbourhood came by to check out the white people, too funny. They all wanted us to eat first, so we did. I've never eaten a meal like this with my hands before, we rinsed them in a communal dish, then dug in....rice and all, with my hands....awesome. I was a bit worried I was going to get sick, but I was fine. Then we went surfing in Medewi, best surfing we've had yet, only 4 other people there, big waves, lots of fun!! Went back to Maday's place to hang out. I've noticed that pretty much EVERYONE smokes in Bali, not only that, but they smoke alot. I had a piece of something black lodged into the ball of my foot pretty deep, so we tried to get it out. It turned into a big deal, about 5 people tried to get it out using scissors, tweezers, a pin, and a flashlight...too funny, came out. That night we were heading to a "drama", a traditional play put on by the village, it was a celebration of some sort. On our way there Maday wanted to stop at his friends house. They were sitting around on a porch, drinking some homeade brew called "ara", talking and playing guitar. A few spoke a tiny bit of english, one guy was actually not too bad. Not wanting to be rude Freddy and I tried some of their ara, drinking out of the communal glass :) haha, actually turned out to be lots of fun. They loved us, we were part of crew. Headed down to check out the drama, it was ridiculous, but funny....although I didn't understand it. It had to do with fighting the powers of evil; Bali is pretty much Hindu, but most of Indo is Muslim - a few years ago the Muslims dropped bombs on Legion...exactly where we are staying!!
Our room was a bit sketch, blanket on a piece of wood, we shared a bed. We were woken up at 5am to the sound of a pig squealing frantically. Got up a bit later and found the pig being roasted on a spit...again, their celebration. We took off as they were going to start praying or something. As cool as the experience was, it was so nice to leave. It's exhausting being in that situation, but super cool!!

Anyway, Freddy is off to Pontianek tomorrow and I think I'm just going to lay low for a week in Kuta and treat it as a holiday, these last 5 days have been intense. Probably won't have much to blog about.....