A friend of mine jokingly called this my "Eat, Pray, Love Tour" because of how long and exotic it was. I called it my thirtieth year adventure. It was acelebration of changing decades that involved more play than usual. In South Africa, I led Flow Movement classes in Johannesburg and Pretoria. I was able to go well outside the normal tourist experiences of Cape Town with a college friend who is an anthropologist/ethnographer/gender studies specialist. One day, I had to set my alarm for 2:30AM to be picked up for the great white shark cage experience in Gansbaai. I truly enjoyed suiting up and sitting in freezing, low visibility water full of chum and then waiting for the sharks to slam their faces on the cage (at which point you actually see them). Basically, you see the shark only when it is three feet away. FUN!
In Dubai we rode quads on the sand dunes which I found far more terrifying than shark encounters. Normally when you find your surface unstable, you go slower; I think most people would agree that when you are unsure of your terrain or surroundings you move with caution. Not on a quad! When the sand is soft and wobbly you have to gun it. Scared? Go Faster!
I then went to Thailand for the first time and became familiar with Rama 9 (the King). His image is so prevalent you leave feeling like homies. I played with snakes and later worked on lateral undulation of my own in bellydance class. I passed through Singapore and Hong Kong before Borneo (more on that here) and Bali. BALI. Life is good in Bali. Every morning, I had coffee over a rainforest ravine in a resort-cum-Balinese art gallery and then trekked down to rinse off in a waterfall. The monkeys tried to steal my bandana on the day I hiked a volcano (Mount Batur) in the dark. Why in the dark? To see sunrise and eat eggs cooked in geothermal steam of course. On the last day, I boated over to Gili Trawangan for some quality time with the reefs.
