No, I've never read Eat Drink Pray Love... and I never will

What a turgid piece of writing. The locals, you'll notice, never mention it. Tourists won't shut up about it.

Today was another good day as I took a shuttle in the morning up to Bumi Bali Cooking School. Bumi Bali is apparently the cooking school for Australians, which is ironic because I just chose it from walking past it in Monkey Forest Road on my first day. When my driver this morning found that out, he laughed all the way there.

What can I say? Great day. For 230,000 I got a Bumi Bali apron, a cook book, and so much food and drink I could barely walk afterward. The day started with a trip to the market to shop for ingredients and then back to the school for a foray into everyday Balinese cuisine.

We cooked, with help from Ketut, fried vegetables, sweet tempeh, chicken curry, sate, and spicy tuna. We also got black rice pudding with coconut cream and a local rice wine punch. All washed down with a Bintang. And all we paid for extra was the beer. Great day.

I walked slowly back to the hotel afterward, stopping only for a foot and leg massage and then went for a late afternoon swim and am about to settle in for an early night. I definitely wasn't interested in dinner after that feast.