Is a Kind of Magic

Bali again for the last couple of months:

My dad came out for a day for his friend's wedding out in Uluwatu (an area on the cliffs of Bali with a lot of surfing and real nice sunsets). It was an Indonesian Chinese Christian wedding. What does that look like? Like a normal one (I was hoping for something crazier). But with Indonesian food (which is crazy enough I guess in this case). And for some reason they had a pair of rabbits in a cage at the entrance:

Obviously I loved that.

We let off balloons at the end of the night. They asked my dad to say something at the wedding. He was totally unprepared and has clearly not seen enough rom coms, because what he said had to be the most hilariously whatever thing I've heard at a wedding, that it was like, is this even a wedding speech.

 Some serious amount of selfies going on that night.

In Uluwatu there are all these cotton trees. You see the pods hanging from them, some in tact, others split open with the cotton bursting from them, looking funny, like crazy grandma wigs hanging.

A jackfruit tree. I really fell in love with jackfruit this time around. Back in Van, one of my absolute favorite things to have at Phnom Penh was a jackfruit mooshake. That has nothing on the real thing. Have you ever had fruit by the foot? The red one? To me that was the best thing you could possibly have at lunch in elementary school. If I could have existed on only those, I would have. In fact I felt like I could. Anyways - jackfruit, when it's at its best, tastes like that. So fulfillingly sweet and makes you super stoked on fruit.

On the drive over to taking this picture (I was on my motorbike), an Indonesian dude saw me, made a u turn, started following me and asked if I wanted him to be my gigolo. Uh no. There was also a storm coming. And I had to race home to beat the rain ("big rain"). I also felt like the gigolo dude was following me (not cool). The sky was so grey and made the colors so much more vibrant on the way home. It was also a Balinese holiday, so there were all these decorations and people running about. I can't tell you enough how good it felt to get home just before it started pouring and without a gigolo.

 My neighbor's cat. Suzuki. I like that sometimes he stops by.

Dry and Sprawling: Lombok

Came back a few days ago from Lombok, an island off of Bali. In all the time that I've been in Bali (almost 6 months in total now) - I have not bothered to explore Indonesia at all. It's terrible and embarrassing! When I was in Mexico, I always wanted to see more and would be just kind of amazed when I would talk to people who would just go to the same place in Mexico over and over.

Bali, at least for me, right now, is this vortex where I don't really feel the need to leave. The island itself has a lot to explore that I have yet to see and even that feels like a whole big thing in itself.

Anyways. My neighbor has a non profit organization, Hairdressers Without Borders, where she goes to developing countries and teaches people there how to cut hair. She was going to Lombok and seeing an opportunity to finally see another part of Indonesia (although haha it's only half an hour away by plane - baby steps yah?) I asked if I could tag along (by helping her haha...take pictures) and she said yes.

I don't really have many pictures (that aren't of washing, combing and cutting hair) to show because we were working for most of the day and would just go out to dinner at the end of the night and pass out shortly thereafter.

But here are some snaps:

This is a tiny thing and might be completely wrong, but you can automatically see the difference in wealth between Lombok and Bali by this corn. In Bali, everywhere there is the option to have sate, grilled meat on a stick - but in Lombok, most of the time you just see this corn. Maybe it's not so much a matter of wealth but that they really like corn haha. Which isn't such a bad thing cause it's delicious. Especially with a coconut. And a nice sunset:

Lombok is known for being a less developed island and to have really beautiful scenery. I didn't get to see much of it, but I can tell you that what I did see, it was really dry at some part, and then lush and sprawling at others.



The actual volunteering. First off, you need to know that Lombok has a really strong Muslim religion. You hear several mosques all throughout the day, religion, religion, religion. Rather than seem like a spiritual thing - it seems more like a limiting thing that contains the people and island's potential. It made me finally see or at least feel the difference between religion and spirituality. I haven't really seen or experienced a lot of Bali's religious ceremonies so this is still probably somewhat ignorant, but from what I have glimpsed, there is something lighter to Bali and I feel like that it's cultivating a spirit, beliefs and a holistic approach rather than a set sort of rules that are just like, wait, where did these come from and why are we following them.

Hearing the mosque all the time and with the dry climate and undeveloped lands, Lombok just felt really heavy. The women get the shit end of the stick in everything.The typical wage is incredibly low and the job options are limited and are again, not increasing the potential of the people and the island.

So for these women to even want to show up (consistently, prepared, and on time) and to learn a new skill that could (and hopefully provide them with a new source of income or at the very least, instil more confidence and independence in them) - is big. Watching the students, the transformation was so fast, at the beginning of the week, they would be shy, really quiet, and kind of scared (some would shake while holding the scissors and tentatively touch people's heads)- but as the week progressed, they would open and you could see the confidence beginning to form and ideas and dreams materializing.

 Us being there for a week is a small thing and who knows might not lead anywhere.

Or maybe everywhere.

I hope.

Bali: Here for Awhile

Went back to Bali for a couple of months. Snaps:

The most perfect orange.

Side of the road satay setup.

They love to burn things here.

This dog is adorable. I love how his ears just flop like that. He's an old one, always kind of in the way when I need to get out, moving at the slowest pace when he realizes he needs to move.

Insane low tide.

My neighbor's cat, Suzuki. My neighbor was driving along a rode and saw two guys pulled over, looking at their car. He asked what was wrong and they said that they thought they heard a meowing coming from inside. They looked and there was this tiny kitten hidden in the engine. When my neighbor held up the tiny thing, he's like, "AH, SUZUKI!" (the car in which the kitten was found was a Suzuki). Really sweet cat. He does this thing where when he's super comfortable, he begins sucking his tail (you can kind of notice in this picture where at the end the tail isn't fluffy) - it is quite the thing to see.

Even though I was in Bali for a longer period of time, I don't have that much to show. I got into a routine, was trying to root myself a bit more. For the time being I have decided to base myself here and go back and forth to Singapore (where my parents are) and to other places I am curious about in Asia. It's odd. I never even planned on coming to Bali. And I never planned on staying past the initial month I came. And I'm not nearly as in love with it as other people who live here longterm, but here I am and if you're ever in Bali or Singapore, do say hello.

We can eat $3 lunches, laugh at getting candy as change, marvel (in both awe and amusement) at the amount of ceremonies there are (from a baby turning 3 months old, to blessing surfboards, motorbikes, and kitchen utensils), get real sweaty and tanned, ride through rice fields on a motorbike to the beach, say hello to the nice guys who run the surfboard rental at the beach and make silly jokes that only they really find funny, surf waves early in the morning (and watch all the surf schools scream at their students, "PADDLEPADDLEPADDLEPADDLE, UUUUUUUUUUUUP!" and then they proceed to scream and laugh some more), drink coconuts, see a Bali healer (with the surname 'Circus') who has the one weird eye and makes lewd jokes (and proceeds to profusely say, just kidding, just kidding) but does somehow manage to fix that one spot without even asking, hang out with many dogs and cats, hang out with my very sweet neighbors (who feel like the true definition of the word in all the best ways) and on and on and on.

It Existed and It Was Nice: Bali Again.

Starting from the middle of May, I was in Bali for a month again. 

I'm surprised this hasn't happened earlier, but I dropped my phone in the ocean. It didn't even feel real! I picked it out as fast as I dropped it and it all happened so fast that it didn't feel like it happened at all. Oh but it did happen. This all happened in the middle of my stay in Bali and I decided to fix my phone back in Singapore (it would take a month or more to fix in Bali because apparently everyone's dropping or ruining their phones and there is a backlog of work). In the meantime I got a phone that I forgot existed. You know what else I forgot? Having to press a key whatever number of times to get to the letter that you want. Remember that?! Or having to press "1" several times to get to the punctuation mark you want? It was so frustrating to not be able to type my thoughts as they came and I had to reduce what I wanted to say down to the bare minimum because it was just annoying to text anything longer than 5 words. I can understand where the use of "r" for "are" and "u" for "you" came from. 

When I got back to Singapore, my dad let me use one of his phones. So massive! I was telling my mom that you know how back in the 80s people had those massive cellphones? How come we're returning to something so huge again? I'll tell you why, cause big screens are awesome. After using this phone for a couple of weeks, I really loved seeing everything so big. Of course it is awkward to hold and you do feel like a bit of a noob holding something so ginormous that it sometimes requires the use of 2 hands (or always does), like how much bigger do you need it? But hurrah, Singaporeans are awesome, were able to fix my stupid mistake and now I have my iPhone again. And it feels so weirdly small. 

Anyways, enough of my thoughts/experiences with phones, here are some pictures from that month in Bali: 

There was this celebration happening called Galungan (which people could only really explain to me in vague terms, but from what I understand and Wikipedia tells me, it's where the Balinese people go to several different temples, making offerings and praying to their ancestors). These (penjors) were everywhere, lining streets, swaying in the wind. 

I asked people to explain them to me and all I really got was "it's like your Christmas tree". 

Misha. A Czech-speaking Balinese dog. She was found in a really bad state in a rice field as a puppy by the owners (Czech and super nice) who rented out the place I was staying in. Isn't she pretty? And aren't you glad she's alive?!

Neighbors. Chickens in a fancy cage. 

Monkeys at Uluwatu temple. So all the yellow bobs you see are cobs of corn and it was a funny sight to come upon, just a bunch of monkeys sitting around eating cobs of corn. Who gives them the corn? Why corn? At Ubud they get yams. Why yams? Who decided monkeys like corn and yams?

It was a peaceful spot that overlooks the ocean and I wanted to hang out there for a bit. So I did. And all of the sudden I feel something on top of me. It was a monkey! I was starting to freak out because unlike a lot of people who come to see these guys, I don't want them on me so that I can take a picture. I heard that these monkeys are more aggressive then the ones you find in Ubud. I was told to just stay calm and eventually the monkey would get disinterested in me and just climb off. I tried to stay still but the monkey just seemed to like me more and more, picking at my hair, starting to groom me. And then another monkey came onto me and the first monkey was starting to dig into me with its teeth and I just couldn't take it anymore and got up and freaked out a bit and thankfully they got off of me without breaking my skin or hurting me. I looked back quickly and they were hissing at me with their teeth. It was terrifying. 

Sooooo...don't hangout with the monkeys unless you're cool with them climbing all over you.

Me camouflaging really well into a spot called 'Honeymoon'. lol seriously, where's my face. 

The last photo I took before I dropped my phone in the water.

I saw so much more of Bali after my phone died and I wish I could have shown you. More lush scenes. Waterfalls. A dead pig being cleaned in the middle of the street early in the morning with this gigantic torch. Flower petals in different colors scattered on the surface of dark water where locals were bathing and being blessed by the water. Local kids finding a snake in a soccer field and taunting each other with it and then playing soccer and chasing each other with their motorbikes. lol, things that I ate (which seemed to mostly be satay). Feeding cows long stalks of grass. Ricefields. Dogs. But you and I have to just trust that it existed and I saw it and that it was nice. 

Bali, Indonesia: Waves.

I was in Bali, Indonesia for a month. Snaps:

Piece of shit Ronald McDonald watch I bought. Note to self: never buy a watch in Bali ever again. 

This place is one of the most touristy things to go to in Bali, but it's totally worth going to. I have been here before, years ago when I was a kid with my family. I remember my brother had a package of peanuts and the monkey just snatched it right out of his hands and it shocked and terrified him. I didn't expect for it to feel so new and interesting to be in the park again. It's so crazy and hilarious to be so close to so many monkeys. 

Tanah Lot. 

Went to Bali mainly to surf. 

Puppy spot. 

Paths going I don't know where but oh I'd like to know. 

This was the view during this meal: 

Like I mentioned earlier, I had been to Bali before when I was a kid with my parents. I don't remember much of it and I don't think we did much either when we were there, just stayed at a resort and were as lazy as humanely possible. So I was interested in revisiting it (lol and not living a resort lifestyle) and seeing how I'd feel about it now (tough life, I know).

There were times where I loved Bali - the surfing (catching better waves and moving to shorter boards, hooray!), the incredibly nice, warm and hilarious people, what little untouched nature I did see was beautiful, the ornate architecture and aesthetics, the spirituality running through so much of everyday living. And there were times where I was so frustrated with it. So many people, so many cars creating these paralyzing traffic jams (what should be a 15 minute ride turns into an hour), hotels and villas everywhere, everyone trying to sell me something (a massage, motorbike rental, sarong, bracelets, taxi ride), being asked where I am from and if they could come with me ("No? I miss you already"), the huge gap between rich and poor, the pollution. But I know that there is more to Bali then what I saw and I want to see it. To know it. And I will be there again soon and I hope I get a bit closer to doing that.