Everyday is adventure. One of the speakers at the Rotary meeting I attended yesterday said. The first group of speakers talked about the new concept of traveling the world. They introduced traveling and exploring cultures in the most affordable way by staying with the local to create deeper bond with the community the traveler visit. It’s called CouchSurfing (CS). I had heard about it but hadn’t explored until I listened to the speakers yesterday.

A good friend of mine became a new couchsurfer the past weeks we didn’t see each other. That’s how she learned about the network, then introduced the concept of the network to her circle of friends. And yesterday’s meeting was one. There were some ten attendees that were wow-ed by the new concept of connecting travelers and the local communities they visit. That through the network we can enjoy free accommodation in ‘couches’ CS members offer that spread in 72,347 cities in 237 countries (statistics taken from the website)!

Become a member, we offer our ‘couch’ to totally strangers that members of CS. Couch here has broad meaning, it doesn’t have to mean we provide bed/place to sleep for other members; but we can also offer arranging programs or many ways of introducing our community to the traveler visiting our city. On our member page, we can set limit or boundary for receiving couchsurfers (that’s noun for the 'traveling members') such as only F/M, certain age group, no/yes smoking, certain liking, etc. I like the idea they mentioned If you don’t have time to travel, travel comes to you (by providing ‘couch’ for people from other culture). That is a brilliant idea!

Realizing that offering ‘couch’ means exposing self to total strangers, some attendees in the meeting had questions about how to verify the couchsurfers applying. The guys from CS (they stay for a few weeks in Ubud developing CS, from what I understand) explained that they do lots of verifying new members like if their credit card pays annual fee matches address they share, and things like that. I personally don’t have idea how they execute the verification because in my case my credit card address is Jakarta but I live in Ubud and am a good person. I believe many have similar issues. I don’t know. Just hats off!

One guy asked the same question I had in mind, how they earn from working almost voluntarily for the organization. The member fee is $ 25/year. Sure CS got hundreds to millions members but it’s in their spirit they don’t advertise so the multiplier might not be as fast. They rely on word-of-mouth effect. I admire what they do for literally other people's 'fun.' I guess they can afford to do it since they are still young and they looked adventurous – in and out. I often thought there must be something develop out of budget-airline trend. One of those could be this. I believe. Because of the new way of exploring the world; people travel more, share more, then understand other culture better, in the end we all create a better community with better understanding. And just today, an attendee sent us email sharing that she's going to host several couchsurfers soon already.

The couchsurfers delivered the first presentation in the meeting. The second group of speakers was also interesting. They are fellows of Rotary World Peace Fellowship who got scholarship to get Master degree on human rights via Rotary district in their place. The girl is from Australia studying law, the guy from the Philippines studying Asian Studies. He is documentary film maker back home. They are both studying in California now. They are attending a two-week conference in Tuban, Bali, before they are off for their three-month internship of their choice. The girl will go to Solomon Islands and the guy to New York City. They describe what they do as ‘study and contribute.’ What a nice way to put it.

We ended the nice meeting with nice hilarious dinner where I heard more wow stories from a lady who’s been living in Ubud over twenty years and has 250 Balinese employees. Glad I still have hats for hats off! We had good laugh when she shared how she reduced the cost of medical in her office. Since last year, she required all employees to salsa dance together every Friday. Miraculously, after a few months some of the employees are capable of becoming salsa teachers! Even a guy earns sevenfold the amount he gets from her company by teaching salsa in the evening. It was hilarious! Happy lady!

That was my evening, my day was fabulous too! I decided to roam Denpasar by myself, without my cousin in the passenger seat like he used to. Denpasar map is not easy to comprehend and many roads are one-way that I realized later it’s good actually since it's like guiding you to a certain destination rather than making you lost even further. Anyway, I managed to go places with my not-so-skillful way to read map. I’m quite disoriented but I can do if I don’t have choice. And I did not!

I had some errands to run but actually the main purpose of the trip was buying myself a toy! A netbook that I had considered buying a year. The timing is good since the technology of netbook is already ‘there’ now unlike a year ago. I bought my netbook in the first shop I entered merely because the shopkeepers were smart and honest (I felt). I only read a few review about some brands the day before. I’m not a review-type person. I just bought what I feel ‘enough’ (specification and price wise). One and half hour later I drove back with my new toy. I was so excited but I could only play the toy this morning. Yes, I had busy evening learning about the fun way to enrich life.

My morning view some mornings ago.