I pulled into Bali yesterday to be greeted at the airport by my good friend "Made" (also known as Elvy's). I met Made seven years ago during my first visit to Bali. Since then, I have been back every year and used Made's services as my personal driver. Because of current job situation, which is that I don't have one, I will not be able to afford Made as my personal driver everyday. But because we have become good friends over the years, Made as offered to let me borrow his Motorbike during my stay at no charge. All I need to do is fix the lights and buy a surf rack for it so I can get to the waves with my board. Driving in Bali is definitely crazy; you pretty much take your life into your hands every time!

My first mission yesterday was to find a place that I can call home! Made ended up taking me to a cheap hotel where I ended planting my stuff for the time being. The rate was about $11.00 US per night with breakfast included. After dropping my stuff, I hit the town in search of more options to call home. In the end, I found a better hotel with a nice garden, pool, and restaurant for about $4.00 US per night including breakfast. My room is pretty big, clean, and just has a ceiling fan. No Air-conditioning unless I want to pay an extra $2.00 per night! It's located on a quite street in Kuta, but close to everything! When I returned yesterday eve to my first hotel, I was greeted by the local Night Club next door. The music was so loud that it pretty much sounded like the disco was in my room! There was no way that I was going to be able to stay here after that.

Now the best part about my first day in Bali! The pictures below will tell it all if you surf. I ended up heading to one of my favorite beaches which has two great surf spots: Bingin and Impossibles. Bingin is probably one of the most perfect/consistently tubing waves in the world. If you don't get tubed, then you will most likely not make the wave. It is also "Extremely" shallow with a very sharp reef. It was definitely a solid overhead day and the waves were pumping and pounding. On my first wave at Bingin I ended getting pitched as I dropped in. I took a very hard beating on the reef followed by 3 set waves where I got pounded in the impact zone. "Welcome to Bali Eddie" is what the Sea Goddess was telling me! There is rumor that the Indian Ocean here is haunted by a Sea Goddess that eats up surfers. Well, after that is was all good and I did manage to get some epic tube rides!

For my second surf session, I decided to paddling out at "Impossibles". As you will also see in the pics, it was just perfect and peeling for about 200 yards. I got so many classic rides and just couldn't be more stoked to be in Bali again. For those of you who know me, then you definitely know how much I love everything about this country. I always feel so at home here. That's about it for now; I’ll post some pics of my new home in a few days. The journey continues.....